


What It Means To Me

by Endriya



Series: What It Means To Me [1]
Category: Horus Heresy - Various Authors, Warhammer 40.000, Warhammer 40k (Novels) - Various Authors
Genre: Aggression, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Controlling Behaviour, Gender Dysphoria, Hormones, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Pheromones, Possessive Behaviour, Unhealthy Relationships, Violence, poor communication
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-04
Updated: 2020-09-20
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:48:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 42,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25716091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Endriya/pseuds/Endriya
Summary: Ever since he had first laid eyes on him, Magnus had wanted the Khan as his mate, and had refused to settle for anything less than the wayward beta.Jaghatai Khan had been far from averse to the idea of having Magnus as his partner, annoying though the sorcerer could be; what he found he was less keen on was the idea of having Magnus as an alpha, with all that entailed.Constantin Valdor was not used to this feeling of nervousness, nor he used to not being in control. He was, however, used to not understanding Leman Russ, so that, at least, had not changed.Russ knew that he wanted Valdor, but not why he did, nor how to get him. What he did know was that, if he got his way, sooner or later the Custodian would be his.Vulkan was single, and fine to be so.Alpharius was too, and was happy to remain that way. Omegon, however, has been... preoccupied lately.
Relationships: Emperor of Mankind/Malcador (WH40k), Leman Russ/Constantin Valdor, Magnus (WH40k)/Jaghatai Khan, Roboute Guilliman/Rogal Dorn, Vulkan/Alpharius, Vulkan/Omegon
Series: What It Means To Me [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1931554
Comments: 11
Kudos: 62





	1. First Looks

**Author's Note:**

> So, first things first, I'd like to thank [DAZzle_10](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DAZzle_10/pseuds/DAZzle_10), who has patiently read and edited most of this, and generally kept me motivated. 
> 
> Secondly, for ease of reference, I'd like to provide a complete list of all primarchs and other reasonably major characters, grouped by the sex I have assigned them, as viewed by your average third person: 
> 
> **Alphas:**  
>  The Emperor of Mankind  
> Lion El'Jonson  
> Fulgrim  
> Leman Russ  
> Roboute Guilliman  
> Magnus  
> Vulkan 
> 
> **Betas:**  
>  Perturabo  
> Jaghatai Khan  
> Sanguinius  
> Angron  
> Mortarion  
> Horus 
> 
> **Omegas:**  
>  Rogal Dorn  
> Konrad Curze  
> Ferrus Manus  
> Lorgar  
> Corvus Corax 
> 
> **Unknown:**  
>  Alpharius  
> Malcador the Sigillite 
> 
> **N/A:**  
>  Constantin Valdor
> 
>   
> Thirdly, (an edit to add) if anyone is interested, the title of this fic comes from the song 'Love Of My Life', by Queen. It's a good song, and you should (in my opinion) definitely listen to it if you haven't already. 
> 
> Fourthly, a (brief?) discussion of tags/things I want to say, the first of which is the disclaimer that these relationships I have depicted should NOT be taken as healthy, especially when removed from the context of this particular AU (but often even in that context). 
> 
> Another thing is that, while I have mostly tried to represent characters as accurately as possible, there may be some for which I have failed to do so (please tell me if you think that's the case), and there are also some who I have intentionally caricatured. 
> 
> This fic is focussed on the aforementioned relationships, particularly those between: Vulkan, Alpharius and Omegon; Leman Russ and Constantin Valdor; and Magnus and the Khan. As my writing focusses on the relationships, it isn't exactly 'plot-driven', although I'd say that, to the extent that it exists, there is a plot, or at least a few separate strands of vaguely plot-like content, if you get what I mean. 
> 
> I've tagged dub con even though, as the omniscient author, I know that, to the extent that there can be consent, it is there. However, there is certainly leeway to interpret it otherwise, and this is referred to at times in the text as well. Ultimately, there are issues going on with biological determinism, capacity and comprehension etc. 
> 
> Gender dysphoria is referenced and described in this fic, although this is mostly localised to the parts involving the Khan and Magnus, so is hopefully fairly easy to skip if you want to. 
> 
> ... I haven't made unhealthy/disordered eating behaviours (or similar) an official tag, but it is referenced in one scene, and I'll intend to mark that one out more clearly when I post it, because I certainly don't want to cause anyone any harm. 
> 
> On that note, if you do see anything else you think I should have warned you about, please feel free to let me know so I can rectify the problem. 
> 
> Finally, on a lighter note, the first inklings of this fic were started probably over a year ago by now, and my ideas for it have changed during that time so, while I've tried to avoid such things, I can only hope that my attempts to figure out where I'm going with this aren't too obvious. 
> 
> I think/hope I've said everything else that needs to be said, so all that remains is that I hope you enjoy this little exploration of a set of hypothetical relationships of fictional characters.

After all his many centuries of living and experience of the finest luxuries that life could offer, Roboute Guilliman had come to the conclusion that there was no greater pleasure than to sit with your mate tucked under your arm, snuggled peacefully against you and radiating contentment.  
Slowly turning the page of their book, he took the time to look down to the white-haired omega half sitting on his lap and smiled. Roboute had an appreciation for the finer aspects of culture and art, and he knew then that there was no prettier thing upon which one could gaze in the entire galaxy.  
Pressing a kiss to Dorn's head, he returned his attention to the words before him.  
As a habit, Guilliman always left a few extra seconds after he had finished reading before turning the page, when he was reading with his mate.  
It wasn't that he believed that Rogal couldn't or didn't read as quickly as he could; it was more that he felt it was important not to cause the omega — any omega — undue stress by demanding that he did.  
Unfortunately, this custom left him with an extra few moments in which his attention might start to wander. Sometimes, he merely let himself get distracted by his omega and all was well. Sometimes, however, he found that his gaze was drawn to...less savoury things.  
Like the Khan, who had chosen that fine morning to deviate from his habitually private routine and was sitting reading on the settee opposite with one leg hooked over the armrest, slouching against Magnus, who was on the cushion next to him.  
There was something about the open domination inherent in this pose that put him on edge, hairs on the back of his neck prickling in protest.  
Roboute could not approve of the level of casual disregard for the upholstery it took to so unceremoniously sling one's booted leg over its arm, but what was worse, in his opinion, was that Magnus was an alpha. Not just any alpha; he was the Khan's alpha.  
Roboute always tried his best to be a tolerant and open-minded individual, and he knew that traditional dynamics didn't work for everyone — especially in alpha-beta relationships — but in his mind, this lack of proper deference was just wrong. It was unnatural and strange and, if they really had to do this, he would much rather that they did it in private, where the rest of them didn't have to see. He was a traditionalist, and so considered that the correct and acceptable way for the subordinate mate to treat their alpha was with due obeisance and submission, certainly not as a pillow. The worst part was that Magnus didn't even seem to mind; this wasn't just a case of an unruly mate refusing to do his alpha's bidding, who could easily be broken in, but an overly complaisant alpha who simply did not feel the need to instil discipline, although it was surely wanted for.  
It wasn't just in ways like this, however, that the need for correction was clearly demonstrated; it was everything about their relationship, from the way they touched, to the looks they shared, to the manner in which they spoke to each other. It was especially the look that the Khan was giving him, now that he had caught him staring, a fierce look of defiance, insubordination, and dominance.  
He found himself preparing to growl as his alpha instincts kicked in in response to the challenge, confused by the conflicting signals of this disobedient beta who, being bonded to an alpha, should surely know better, and surely that alpha should be keeping him in check.  
_Who_ , the alpha part of him thought, _did this beta think he was, to be looking at an alpha in this way?_  
_A primarch_ , the rational part of him answered, letting the growl that had built up in his throat release in a low rumble, _and a refractory one at that_.  
Dorn whined in Guilliman's lap in response to his alpha's aggression, and Roboute took this opportunity to look away from those unnerving brown eyes in an instant, gently shushing his mate and then imagining the sweet mental image of Dorn biting his lip in his haste to comply. Sure enough, when he ran his fingers over Rogal Dorn's lips, they came away bloody and so he let his omega lick them clean again as he spared one last glance for the Khan, who had fortunately now returned to his reading, before determinedly refocussing himself on the half-turned page of their book and fixing his attention back on it and his mate. 

Leman Russ looked around as he paced the small room but took in nothing new.  
It remained as it always had been: spartan and bare, populated only by a shelf which permanently housed only a few orderly titles and an unadorned clock; a neatly made bed; a plain wardrobe which contained the various sets of robes its owner might need; and a small bedside table upon which were carefully placed the only items in plain view that lent support to the idea that there was someone actually in residence here. Those items were: a small stack of books, the titles and orders of which changed regularly, but which were always positioned meticulously such that no corners or edges stuck out from the tower, and that the arrangement itself perfectly aligned with the back left corner of the table; and, in front of those books and a little to the right, perfectly set in the middle of the piece of furniture, a fastidiously polished golden frame which contained the portrait of a black-haired, brown-skinned man who Russ believed was meant to be his father, although this man looked far more human than the Emperor ever had, a soft glint of humour colouring His dark eyes.  
He turned at the end of the room, walked the few short paces back to the plain and unremarkable door, then turned again.  
Breathing deeply as he moved, Russ took in the faint, barely-there scent which lingered, battling through the harsh, hard smell of complete and total sterilisation to reach the muted, barely-perceptible-even-to-his-senses whisper of Constantin. Of his.  
_Mine._  
Russ wrinkled his nose at the room at large. He'd said many a time to Valdor that a man of his position should sleep in a far grander setting, with ornamentation and furnishings to suit, but nothing had ever changed. It wasn't even that he couldn't have a more luxurious bedroom if he so desired; Russ knew that many Custodians filled theirs with books, art work, or weaponry. It just so happened to be his luck that, of all the people his alpha instinct could have chosen as his destined mate, he had managed to set his heart on the one who was entirely devoid of personality.  
Circling again, Russ flicked his eyes to the clock. He'd been waiting four hours.  
That was by no means the longest Russ had ever waited in Constantin's room — he was sure that the Custodian must sleep at his desk, the amount of time he seemed to spend away — but it was certainly long enough for his doubts to begin to creep in.  
Was he avoiding Russ? Was Russ bothering him? Did he want Russ to leave?  
He'd always tried to make it clear to Valdor that he had only to say the word and Russ would stop and leave him alone. He would hate it, yes, but he would. For his mate.  
_He's not your mate._  
_Yet._  
The problem was that Constantin had never tried to stop him, never tried to say no, only lain back and taken whatever Russ tried to give him.  
So Leman was left hoping, forcing himself to believe that, in some way, Constantin did want it, and didn't mind his attention, or else the guilt and shame of what he had done would be too much for him to endure.  
He growled as he spun on his heel once more, impatience wearing at him all the while; no matter how Russ tried to only approach his mate-to-be when he felt in control of himself, like he wouldn't do something he'd later regret, when he'd been waiting for so long his composure always started to slip. Knowing that he should leave was no use either; he knew that he could not bear to without seeing Constantin first.  
A gentle click as the door opened caused Russ to pivot suddenly, turning to face the man who plagued his thoughts, here at last. He beamed.  
As he strode into the room, however, light haloing from his battle plate, Constantin barely spared him a glance, simply saying,  
"I need to rest, my lord," in his gentle, velvety voice.  
And Russ's heart soared, because that meant no. _He had said no._ And that meant that all those times in the past-  
No, it didn't. Just because he had said 'no' now, did not mean that he had meant 'yes' before.  
"Can I help you with your armour?"  
_No, he wants you to leave. He said he wants you to leave. You said you would respect that. That means you have to leave._  
"Or I can just leave, if that's what-" Russ stopped speaking. He smiled, a many-fanged grin which he swiftly rearranged to hopefully look a little less predatory.  
"Please," Constantin had said. So Russ did not wait to start his work.  
"Why didn't you go to the armoury?" He'd have serfs to help him there.  
"I have dealt with enough people lately. I'm sure you know the feeling, Lord Russ."  
He did. What's more, he also knew the feeling of Constantin's right shoulder through his body glove, a corded hunk of tight, knotted muscle which he longed to kiss.  
Russ volunteered to have his armour shipped to its rightful place once it was off and sent it away with a number of serfs, turning back in time to watch as Constantin, facing the opposite wall in a show of trust that made Russ's chest tingle, stripped off the last of his body glove, leaving him standing naked and unashamed in his room. He really did have no idea of the reaction he stirred within the primarch, and Russ, after a brief attempt at lifting them, finally accepted that his eyes were simply too heavy to lift the metre and a half or so to a spot on the wall by Constantin's shoulder, and allowed himself to think that the view at this level was much nicer anyway, than one of Constantin's unremarkable white walls.  
Unfortunately, Valdor was regrettably swift in pulling a simple, loose-fitting white robe over his head before sitting on the edge of his crisp bed to polish his spear.  
Leman scanned the profile of his face for a long moment, drinking in the sculpted angle of his cheek bones, the gentle furrow of his brow, the slight pout of his lips, just right for kissing and biting. _Perfect_ , he thought.  
_Mine._  
"I thought you needed to rest," Russ growled, alpha instinct suddenly annoyed at what it viewed as deception, removing his hand from the door knob.  
"Yes, my lord, but I must take care of my equipment first."  
He scowled.  
"A man of your esteem shouldn't have to do it himself."  
_My mate should not have to do it himself._  
Constantin didn't answer.  
After a few more moments of watching, Russ sighed, putting aside the ill temper that was always induced into him by his alpha instinct and sitting himself on the bed a little further back than Constantin to rub at the taut muscle of his shoulders.  
Sudden stiffening: surprise; unease.  
"I was going to rest, my lord, once I was done."  
"Of course." He dug thumbs into a particularly hard point, marking carefully the reaction to make sure that he wasn't causing too much pain.  
"I did not factor intercourse into my schedule."  
Russ stopped.  
"What?"  
Valdor stopped what he was doing as well, twisting at the waist to look at him.  
"I assumed that you would want something in return, Lord Russ."  
The Wolf King stared back, mouth vaguely forming around various unarticulated words.  
He thought _that_ was his motive?  
"No," he managed eventually, "nothing." Russ stared a little longer. "Well, maybe I do want it. But not unless you want to, and certainly not because you feel obliged to."  
Valdor bowed his head.  
"I misunderstood, my lord. My apologies."  
Russ shook his head as he returned to the task at hand.  
"All I want in return for this is that you rest well and peacefully."  
"It is very kind of you."  
The fool apparently still hadn't realised that Russ was in love.  
Rubbing at smooth skin through the thin cotton of Constantin's robe, he ventured to kiss the corner of his neck and shoulder just above the hem, then stopped when Valdor tensed again.  
"I'm sorry, I didn't— ...But you don't mind my hands?" A shaking of the head as Valdor once more returned his diverted attention to his spear.  
He loved that spear. Russ was pretty sure that the only thing Constantin loved more than his spear was the Emperor Himself. Certainly, he loved the weapon more than he loved Russ.  
A bitter smile broke through, followed by genuine mirth as Leman Russ realised the hilarity of his situation, pining for someone who could never love him back, and would quite possibly never discern that he himself was loved.  
He chuckled to himself as he massaged, and fortunately Constantin didn't ask why, because Russ thought it would be hard to explain indeed.  
As it was, there was some fortune to Valdor's reverence for his weaponry, as it meant that Russ had plenty of time to smooth out as much of his back as he could get to; he considered offering to work out his legs as well but in the end decided that that would be too suggestive, and may lead to further misunderstanding.  
Nonetheless, it was not long before Constantin was lying in bed, covers drawn up over him.  
Even then, Russ thought, he really was still boring. He didn't curl up on his side, or clutch his blanket closer to him, or slide one arm under the pillow; he simply laid himself down flat on his back and closed his eyes, breathing slowly and evenly to induce sleep.  
Even so, as Russ looked back once more before he left, he thought he saw a slight softening of the man's face in the dark as sleep overtook him.  
Russ took a moment to cherish his mate's vulnerability, watching the steady rise and fall of his chest, before he carefully shut the door behind him.  
The corridor was quiet, so the primarch took a moment to lean against the wall and relish the taste of his Constantin still in the air.  
Footsteps passed him and he asked his eyes open just in time to block the Custodian from opening Valdor's door.  
"He's resting."  
And Russ would be damned if he gave anyone but himself access to his sleeping mate.  
"My lord, he's not actually yours."  
He growled. Yes, he certainly was.  
The Custodian reached out to the door handle again and, realising that he was in their home territory, Russ decided that perhaps this was not the right fight to pick. After all, his father had already scolded him for getting into fights with the Ten Thousand over Constantin and, while the last time had resulted in the Emperor's decision that he should be allowed into the Tower of Hegemon to visit Constantin whenever he wanted (provided the Captain-General didn't object), this time was less likely to turn out so favourably; there was only so much that people were generally willing to put down solely to an alpha's possessive nature.  
So he instead let out a feral snarl and curled his lip at the visitor, then stalked away. 

It had just been little things, at first: the gloves he'd left on Perturabo's workbench had mysteriously reappeared in his forge and, when he went to thank that brother for their return, the Lord of Iron said it hadn't been him; after he'd mentioned in passing to Horus that he'd been lacking purpose lately and was looking for some small thing to fill the gap, a sturdy potted plant had arrived in his bedroom, complete with care instructions; when one of his most-used tools had broken from the wear and tear of its many years of service, he had looked up from his work to see a brand new replacement which he had not yet had time to request on the bench before him.  
And now, as Vulkan left his tinkering to place an order for more adamantium, he found waiting for him a large crate stacked with ingots, the origin of which no one could explain.  
He frowned down at the delivery, then, ordering his guards to back away in case it was some sort of trap, slowly reached out and took the first ingot from the nearest pile.  
Nothing happened.  
Vulkan examined the block carefully. Definitely, it was genuine. There were no blemishes or marks on the smooth metal, just as one would expect from something so tough, except— there, on the bottom, in the corner. A small engraving. Lifting the ingot closer, Vulkan saw the symbol with a jolt of shock.  
The Hydra.  
Carefully placing the ingot back on its stack, he walked to his bedroom, where his new plant sat on the window ledge, and cautiously lifted it into the air. Sure enough, scratched into the bottom of the ceramic pot was the same icon.  
Vulkan was rarely surprised by things, and never in such a large and startling way.  
He replaced the plant pot and returned to frown at the latest arrival, trying to decide whether he should thank Alpharius or request that he stop spying on him. 

For the briefest of moments, Alpharius's face went blank, confusion clouding his stare so momentarily that a less attentive person would have missed it entirely and only seen the smooth smile that followed as the Primarch of the Alpha Legion graciously accepted his thanks.  
Vulkan watched him carefully, trying to figure out this game of his brother's; as best he could tell, the smile was fake and the words were fake, and sure enough, they drifted away into a furrowed brow and tightened jaw the instant he began to turn away and Alpharius thought he was no longer watching. He looked troubled.  
Vulkan had never seen this brother of his let down his guard and allow his mask to slip in this manner.  
"Is something the matter, brother?"  
Instantaneously, the normal Alpharius snapped back to the room with him, his controlled features no longer revealing anything of what was going on inside.  
"No."  
"You've seemed confused ever since I started talking to you. Was it you who sent the adamantium?"  
"Of course it was me."  
Alpharius was a world-class liar, but as part of this he was also a world-class planner. And now, trying to tell this lie for which he had not prepared, the expertise of his falsehood was fraying at the edges, just a little.  
Vulkan did not appreciate being lied to.


	2. Bonds Unbroken

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As promised, just a quick warning for people with eating disorders/who struggle with their eating — the final scene (the third section) of this chapter is potentially triggering due to what is essentially force-feeding, as well as unhealthy thoughts expressed in that scene. If you want to give it a miss, you shouldn't miss out on anything too important, and I'll summarise anything in the scene that is referenced later at the end of the chapter. 
> 
> That aside, enjoy!

Magnus was not usually a demanding alpha. He did not insist upon total obedience and submission from his mate. He was certainly not controlling, least of all to the extent of micromanaging every little aspect of his mate's life, from how much he spoke to others, to when he ate his food, to the very clothes he wore... unlike _some_ alphas he could mention — some who liked to pass judgement on him for not being that way.  
No, Magnus was fairly relaxed; he had been when he was bonded to Lorgar and, as was the trend between alphas bonded to omegas and to betas, he was even more laid back now with the Khan.  
And if some of his brothers were offended by the fact that their relationship was equitable — even, some had gone so far as to say, more like a pairing between two betas than an alpha and a beta — then that was their problem. Magnus was sane. He knew that any attempt to subdue Jaghatai would not generally end well and fortunately, for the most part, he was quite content not to try.  
There were, however, three distinct weeks in each year when Magnus needed to assert his dominance over his beta-mate, 21 days in total in which his alpha hormones took over and evicted his calm and self-control.  
And one of those weeks was, judging by the chemical build-up he felt now in not only his own body but the air around him, going to start in a matter of hours.  
Which was why he was currently striding through the halls on his way to the Khan's bedroom, a bundle of supplies clutched tightly in his arms, growling at any of the currently-resident White Scars alphas he passed, warning them to stay away from _his_ mate.  
Given the aggression and protective drive that must surely have been accumulating in them as well, the Astartes reacted surprisingly calmly in a way that, if Magnus had been in his right mind, would have unnerved him. But the White Scars had always been confoundingly controlled with regards to their heats, rarely seeming affected by their hormones, even at this time.  
Finally reaching his mate's chambers, the Crimson King wasted no time in letting himself in and, shutting the door behind him quietly enough that the Khan would not accuse him of being overly aggressive yet loudly enough that he was sure his presence was announced, he could, at long last, breathe in his mate's scent.  
His own hormones were clearly coming now to the fore and were undeniably present within Jaghatai's usual smoky signature, which Magnus found a gratifying sign of their healthy bond; as a beta, the Khan did not independently produce mating hormones of his own, and they were only released as a response to the pheromones of his bonded alpha.  
The part of him that was alpha was always pleased to note that it was he who had caused such a profound reaction in his chosen mate.  
"You're early."  
Snapping his attention away from his fantasies, Magnus followed the voice across the plush bedroom carpet to find his mate half-naked in the bathroom, standing before a mirror as he combed through his still-wet hair which formed a sheet of black diamond down the left side of his face.  
The Cyclops sniffed, glancing behind him to the bed and glowering.  
"You're late."  
The Khan shot him a critical look in the mirror.  
"How am I late?"  
Magnus wandered back to the bedroom, setting down his package on the end of the bed and surveying the distinctly unordered covers once more.  
"No nesting."  
An impatient noise.  
"I'm a beta. I don't nest."  
Letting a scowl pull at his face, Magnus gave into his instinct to prowl the room, searching for any threat that might harm or upset his mate while they were coupling — ignoring the array of weaponry and grizzly trophies on display on the walls.  
As he stalked, an odour, not previously noticed, started to tingle at his senses. An alpha.  
Magnus growled. He turned back to the bathroom.  
"Why do I smell another alpha?"  
The Khan, when Magnus pressed his nose against his skin, smelt of no one but himself, but then, he'd just showered. His discarded clothes, the primarch found, held a much more distinctive flavour of other.  
"That's what happens, when you exercise with others, Magnus. Sometimes you get their sweat on you," came his reply as Magnus tried to figure out to whom this particular scent belonged.  
_Qin Xa._ Magnus had still not forgiven him for checking in on him and the Khan the first few times they had spent Magnus's heat together, before they had become bonded.  
Of course, it was with good reason; everyone knew that unbonded alphas could get highly aggressive with their bedfellow, and that it was even more dangerous for a beta, who did not release the same soothing hormones as an omega did. That didn't make it forgivable, though. And what was even less tolerable, in Magnus's mind, was the fact that, through some mind-blowing feat of self-discipline, the keshiga had not only come, but had left his own mate alone in bed to ensure the safety of his Khagan.  
"Specifically, what were you doing?"  
"Duelling."  
"I wasn't aware that your style of duelling included much physical contact."  
A shrug.  
"I disarmed him, so he charged me and we ended up wrestling on the ground." The Khan gave him a pointed glare. "You can check my account if you must."  
Dropping the tunic and coming to wrap his arms around his mate, Magnus shook his head.  
"You know how I feel about him. About any alpha's scent on you."  
"And you know how I feel about you coming here before the heat and acting as if you own me," huffed his mate in turn, extricating his arm from Magnus's grip in order to continuing combing his hair dry. "Now, remove your hands."  
Such impudence.  
Hormones surging, demanding that he demonstrate his authority, he nipped his mate's neck in warning.  
The Khan all but rolled his eyes, hostility and discontentment now colouring his fragrance.  
"Remove your hands, Alpha. Please."  
It was barely an improvement.  
"Why don't you go and make a nest, seeing as you want one so much? Just stop bothering me."  
Alphas didn't nest. It wasn't their job. Alphas brought the food and other supplies. The subordinate mate made the nest.  
Nevertheless, Magnus made himself let go and step away, back into the bedroom.  
The Khan was right in some ways. They had a standing agreement that Magnus wouldn't come early if he was going to act possessively; knowing that he was going to be spending the week stuck in bed with another, even if he would have his hormones to ease the experience, Jaghatai needed all the free space he could get in the days and hours before the mating period.  
_For my mate,_ Magnus told himself, quickly sorting through all that he had brought and putting it away in a convenient place for later. _To make him happy._  
After all, a happy mate was a fertile mate. Not that either of them were fertile, being primarchs. Indeed, not that the Khan would be fertile in that way anyway, given that he was a beta.  
The Cyclops forced himself to sit on the bed and wait, trying not to breathe in too deeply the sour anger his mate was still giving off, which did nothing to soothe his alpha pride after their argument; quite a contrast to the unignorable tang of an omega in distress, which no alpha could fail to respond to with nurture and caring.  
It was another half an hour before the Khan reappeared, but by that time the heat was imminent, the way each of their pheromones rebounded off of the other's perpetuating an exponential spiral of need in a way that the scents of no other than a bonded pair could.  
He was dressed now in a thick robe that obscured his body entirely and, when he sat on the bed, he pulled a thick felt blanket and some furs tightly around him to further conceal his form.  
Magnus's alpha senses writhed in response to the turmoil he picked up in the depths of the Khan's soul, protesting that he should do something to soothe his mate.  
"I'm sorry," the Khan said before he could react, however, "I did not intend to get so angry with you. I saw us in the mirror and..." He did not continue but it did not matter. Magnus knew what he saw.  
He saw what he could not stand to.  
He saw a curvaceous body, softened by a mixture of foreign mating hormones and its own primarch-level adaptiveness, with a dip in the waist and a broadening of the hips. He saw an extra layer of fat, filling out his cheeks and rounding off his edges, preparing for a child that would never come and that he had no natural instinct to want. He saw the alpha clutching onto this body, possessive and domineering, claiming it as his sole property. He saw the body of an omega, healthy, fertile, and ready for his alpha and owner. And he saw his face on it.  
"It is foolish," Jaghatai muttered, although he still couldn't bring himself to unwrap himself from his hiding place. Protectiveness kicking in, Magnus growled as he shook his head, inching closer to his mate out of instinct, but holding back out of fear of furthering his discomfort.  
"It is understandable." He wished that he had realised at the time that the Khan's reaction to him had held more in it than just impatience.  
"I can wait outside until it starts properly, if you'd rather."  
He knew that his mate would be fine once the heat had started, the hormones that had inflicted these bodily changes on him also then readying him mentally for the mating period. It was the time either side of this week when the Khan was at his worst.  
But Jaghatai shook his head.  
"You know how it is. The hormones will take effect soon and I'll be fine. You should get comfortable."  
Now that he mentioned it, Magnus was starting to feel overly hot in his robes. Only a few minutes, he estimated.  
"This is your last chance to run away," he warned as he stood to strip, and maybe the Khan caught the frailty underlying his attempt at a joke, or maybe he genuinely meant it, but Magnus glowed when he said that he didn't want to run. 

The Emperor sighed as He returned His attention to the room in which they sat, steepling His steady fingers beneath His dark eyes before turning to glance at Malcador. The Sigillite met his master's overpowering gaze, then flicked his own eyes, also dark yet not quite so deep as the Emperor's, down to the Master of Mankind's fingers, watching as they pressed together. He sighed too.  
The source of their concern was the same. It was the primarchs as, or so it seemed, it always was.  
"Only the usual suspects," Revelation murmured, referring to those primarchs who had, as they had intended, built traditional relationships, in which betas did not mix with alphas and omegas.  
This had been meant to not leave them crippled when the heat set in; they would still have over a third of their commanders, who were betas and thus not affected. As it was, they were, most heats, left with only two still active — three, if you counted Corax, who took hormonal suppressants to avoid the discomforts of his omega biology or perhaps, in a pinch, Vulkan as well. He took suppressing medications of a different sort to reign in his alpha hormones out of fear that he might be induced to hurt someone in the rage of the mating period, but nonetheless preferred to withdraw during that time, so still barely counted.  
The Emperor was watching him still, now tapping His fingers together.  
"What is to be done, Malcador?"  
"I don't know either," Malcador admitted. "Why don't we just exile them to some far away planet and be done with them?"  
Revelation chuckled; Malcador was one of the few people who could entice a laugh from the Emperor of Mankind.  
"And what of Russ?" He asked. "He is the one causing most of the problems."  
Malcador nodded his agreement.  
"He seems to have become more possessive, and thus more aggressive, as time goes on," he began. "Perhaps he could do with some time out."  
The Emperor continued to stare as He thought on that, and the Sigillite could feel his master sifting through his thoughts, exploring what he intended.  
"Yes," He said at last. "Yes, and I don't think he's the only one that needs a break."  
"No," Malcador agreed. "Although he's the one most likely to get into a fight in the meantime."  
They paused on that for a moment, both agreeing with the statement.  
"How long do you think it will be?" Revelation asked suddenly, musing. "Do you want to make a bet? I say..." He seemed to zone out for a second, eyes glazing over with light, "twenty weeks until the next fight."  
"That's cheating!" the Regent protested. "You can't expect me to enter into a bet with you regarding the future, when you can see it and I can't."  
"Not even for," his companion reached out a hand and something coalesced within it, "this bottle of wine?"  
_As if that very bottle had not just been taken from Malcador's own private collection._  
"And if I lose?"  
"I'll think of something."  
Pressing his lips together, the Sigillite shook his head against his master's unusually playful mood.  
"It's a fine vintage. All yours."  
Malcador considered the odds. He would lose, of course, that was out of the question. What he was more interested to know was what the penalty would be; Revelation could come up with the most devilishly beautiful ideas when He was so inclined.  
"Very well," he conceded, musing on his own guess; twenty weeks seemed just a little too long to be believable, although such a period of time without strife would be a blessing indeed. "Fourteen weeks," he offered and watched how the Emperor's lips twitched. "Was it that bad a guess?"  
"Not at all, dear friend. It was a wonderful guess."  
A wonderful guess indeed. He wondered what he would give for it, but that wondering was soon cut short by the Emperor's hand on his thigh, rubbing Malcador's skin through the thin fabric of his robe.  
He shook his head; he was tired from his work, and had only come down to see his master for the company, not to satisfy their mutual desires. Nonetheless, he threaded the fingers of his own hand through the dark digits of the Master of Mankind. He smiled at him, but He understood and pushed no further than a brief kiss, which Malcador would have returned had He not withdrawn so quickly.  
"Bedtime, then," the Emperor announced, "and I will have to get my thinking cap on about this bet of ours." 

The Khan wanted to run. He wanted to ride. Even a gentle stroll would do it. Anything but be trapped in bed with an overbearing alpha cuddled up behind him force-feeding him grapes.  
Another of the purple fruits pressed against his lips and, seeing little other choice, the Khan ate it after only a slight hesitation, sighing internally as the hand that had delivered the grape retreated momentarily before returning with a new one.  
"I'm not hungry."  
The Crimson King growled and pressed the grape harder against his lips. The Khan took it.  
"You've fed me enough already, Magnus, Alpha."  
"You need to eat, sweet mate."  
But he didn't want to. Not only was the primarch not hungry, but he knew that, once the heat was over and he remembered how much he hated what it did to his body, every morsel eaten now would be another bit of fat to burn off, to scour from his hips, waist and buttocks, before he could bear to look down at himself, or to see his reflection in the mirror.  
Magnus's other hand ran over his hip as another grape was pushed into his mouth.  
"Eat."  
There was nothing left to do. Turning in the alpha's arms, Jaghatai gave Magnus his widest-eyed stare, willing his hearts to start racing and his pupils to dilate in order to properly sell a sense of alarm. It worked and the alpha's unavoidable natural response to protect him kicked in; Magnus tightened the grip of his arms about him, glaring over his head to try to find the source of the Khan's distress, and stopped trying to feed him grapes.  
If he were honest, the Warhawk was not that much more fond of being cuddled in this way than he was of being fed but it was a little better, at least, and so he tried to force himself to relax into the alpha's possessive arms, and to ignore the discomfort that no amount of hormones could save him from. He failed on both counts.  
Magnus was overbearing.  
He loved the sorcerer — of course he did; Magnus was his friend, his brother and his lover. But at the same time, the Khan couldn't help but feel that the alpha read something more into their relationship — something more than he felt able to give. Something more than he wanted to give.  
_Why do I do this to myself?_ No matter how many times the Khan answered this question, still it circled in his head, on and on and on like the impossibly slow ticking of the clock as it counted down to when he would be free again. He knew the answer, it was because he loved Magnus, because his brother relied on him to do it, but still he couldn't help but wonder, often, if it was really worth it. Three weeks a year. Surely, he could put aside completely his own needs for only three weeks a year.  
"Stop fidgeting," Magnus grumbled, interrupting the Khan's thoughts and bringing him back to the present. He hadn't even been aware that he _was_ fidgeting.  
"Sanguinius thinks it's your fault," he replied, although talking back to an alpha during heat had never been a good idea. Sure enough, Magnus scowled.  
"My fault?"  
"He says he only notices this happening immediately before and after the heat, when the influence of your hormones on me is strongest. Therefore, he has concluded — and I must say that I agree — that it must be mating hormones that cause me to fidget. Mating hormones," he added for emphasis, "that I wouldn't have if not for you."  
Magnus grizzled.  
"Well, be still. You're supposed to be tired."  
"Perhaps you should have made me so."  
There, he had crossed the line. Magnus snarled, the fury of an affronted alpha filling him, and buried his teeth into the Khan's neck, biting his bond-mark to reassert his possession. The Khan was not the sort to roll over and defer, but he was also no fool, so he tilted his chin up, exposing more of his neck to his alpha in a rare display of submission. Desperately, he attempted not to think the thoughts that came trespassing into his head.  
_He owns you._  
The Khan wanted to run.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With regards to the last section: Sanguinius's theory of why the Khan fidgets during the heat, although not important overall, is referenced in the next chapter. It basically says that the Khan only fidgets around the time of the heat, which suggests that he only fidgets when under the influence of mating hormones. As Jaghatai wouldn't have those hormones if not for Magnus, it is therefore Magnus's fault that he fidgets.


	3. Together

Ever since the Emperor had called them all back and insisted that none of the primarchs would be returning to war until they had managed to form a more cohesive, familial group, it had been their tradition to gather in one of the many lounges on their floor of the Palace as the alphas and omegas came out of their heats.  
This time was no different and so, only a few hours after the heat had started to fade, there was already a collection of alphas gathered in one corner of the stuffy room; especially in this oppressively warm weather, the omegas would likely not show up for another few days, too busy resting as their instinct — and more often than not their mates — demanded.  
As it was, some alphas also liked to nap in the post-mating week period, which was why it was such a surprise to Sanguinius when a bleary-eyed Magnus entered the room and sat with his fellow alphas, with whom Sanguinius had already decided to pass his time.  
"You're up early," Fulgrim greeted, to which Magnus nodded.  
"Have you finished your beauty sleep already?" the Angel asked playfully.  
Mournful, the sorcerer shook his head.  
"The Khan made the bed cold," he explained.  
"You mean he left it?" Sanguinius asked; Magnus nodded again. "He left you?"  
"No!"  
Forcing himself not to laugh, Sanguinius appreciated, privately but not for the first time, that post-heat alphas really were fun to wind up — although, of course, this was only true as long as one was secure in their ability to take them on in any fight that may result.  
"Did you have a good week?" Roboute was asking the newcomer in his usual courteous fashion.  
"He fidgets," the Crimson King complained, to sounds of sympathy from the rest, "ceaselessly. And he's so thin, I don't think there's a single bone in his body with which he hasn't yet stabbed me in the process."  
"How can you stand it?" Fulgrim asked.  
"I can't but there's nothing I seem able to do."  
"And have you tried disciplining him?" Guilliman suggested, to which Magnus responded with genuine, good-natured laughter.  
"Now, brother, even if I were so inclined, I don't need my foresight to tell me that wouldn't end well."  
"Has the Khan told you my theory?" Sanguinius asked, a little bemused by the unity of the alphas' reaction to the idea of a fidgeting mate — why, even Russ, who would surely now be keenly feeling his lack of a bonded partner, seemed to be empathising.  
"He has," Magnus confirmed, "and I can't say that I like it."  
While the conversation continued to flow, moving as it did so onto more general grievances against mating period bedfellows, Sanguinius allowed his attention to be diverted by the sound of the door at the end of the room gently creaking open and then shut. The Khan, presumably just back from taking the fresh air, as was his habit post-heat, slipped through the opening and slunk to an armchair in the opposite corner of the room to the assembly, into which he drew himself.  
Magnus glanced over to him and seemed to tighten as he did so, but made no other reaction; Sanguinius swiftly returned his concentration to the present conversation.  
The alphas were now complaining about their partners not wanting to eat as often or as much as they wanted them to eat which, when Sanguinius thought about it, made little sense.  
"Doesn't that mean that you've attended to their needs sufficiently?" he asked, "isn't that a good thing?"  
Fulgrim laughed.  
"Oh, brother," he chuckled, "you try so hard."  
"What? I can't understand you alphas."  
"My dear beta brother," teased the Phoenician, so Sanguinius looked to his other brothers for help and received none.  
"I don't understand you alphas," the Angel said again, making sure to keep a good-natured smile in order to avoid causing offence. "I think I might have to start a beta-only club, now that I am not the only one. I'll leave you to your conversation now."  
Standing, he stretched his wings as he said his goodbyes before crossing the room to his other brother, who barely reacted to his increasing proximity.  
His brow furrowed. That was odd. What was also odd — and Sanguinius kicked himself for somehow not having noticed before — was the thick winter cloak the Khan was ensconced in, in which he surely must have been sweltering in the scorching heat of the mid-afternoon, and the way his normally loose, sprawling limbs were pulled up and into him protectively.  
"Hello, brother," he greeted with a forced cheer, which he hoped would rouse the Warhawk from his brooding.  
The Khan made no detectable reply. Sanguinius swallowed, feeling his face twisting further into a frown. "Is everything alright? Are you cold? Did Magnus not feed you enough?"  
He thought at first that he would get no answer but was shortly responded to by a low grunt which, although expressing very little, seemed slightly more positive than not in tone. Pausing to consider, Sanguinius absent-mindedly bit through the skin of his lower lip, a bead of blood sliding into his mouth and onto his lower teeth.  
There was taciturn, then there was this.  
"Jaghatai?" he tried again. "Is something the matter?" No response. "Is there anything I can do for you, brother?"  
The Khan shook his head. The Angel took another pause, then tried again. "I can get Magnus if you-"  
"No."  
"Horus?"  
"No."  
"Is there anything I can do? Anything at all?"  
But the Khan shook his head and so, with nothing else left to do, Sanguinius shifted to the edge of the seat he had taken and slowly moved to fold his arms around his brother, exerting gentle pressure as their cheeks came together. "I am here for you, brother, if you need me."  
He waited awkwardly for a few seconds, hoping for some kind of acknowledgement, and was just about to draw back anyway when a hand gripped each of his arms, squeezing in exactly the same reassuring way in which he was holding the Khan, and gently removed them from his body.  
Unfortunately, Jaghatai did not seem inclined to give any better reply, simply letting go of Sanguinius with one final squeeze to his hands, and sitting back, eyes tightly shut.  
If he looked, Sanguinius thought he could see a certain wetness, threatening to spill out, behind his brother's eyelids. 

Vulkan did not rush on his way back from visiting Perturabo, instead taking the time of his walk to carefully consider and analyse the restored designs that his brother had shown him, mulling them over. They were feasible, certainly, but perfectly efficient? No.  
Vulkan could tell that the Lord of Iron knew that, too, and that it irked him that he had not yet figured out an improvement for himself, but asking for help was a start.  
Perhaps he, himself, would work this problem out better in his forge.  
Perhaps, if he did find the answer first, he shouldn't tell Perturabo outright, but lead him to the answer in such a way that he would think he had got it. Then again, perhaps it would do his brother good to learn, however many centuries late, that he did not have to be perfect and know everything.  
He pondered this until, approaching a bend in the corridor, a snatch of murmured discourse returned his attention fully to the present time.  
"You may not want him but _I do_."  
"It's not that."  
Alpharius was stood conversing with a hooded and robed companion of his same height, presumably an Astartes, his arms crossed tightly over his chest.  
A strange thing indeed, to see an argument between two of the Alpha Legion. It was a conversation that Vulkan would have liked to listen in to, if he thought eavesdropping polite.  
As it was, as he turned the corner, the pair cut their words short, switching to another topic of conversation that they obviously deemed more appropriate to their company with quite admirable fluency.  
"Brother," he greeted as he passed, sparing a nod for Alpharius's companion as well.  
The most diminutive primarch scowled but replied in kind, then continued to watch him with piercing eyes as he passed them and continued down the corridor. Although Vulkan could not see the companion's face beneath the low-drawn cowl of his robe, he thought that a second set of eyes was watching him as well in a more thoughtful and less hostile manner. 

Magnus was warm. Laying eyes upon his visual aspect, from his peculiar red skin, to his wild crimson hair, to his broad, convivial smile and piercing monocular gaze, one would think that he would feel very strange to touch indeed. The Khan did not find this; to him, Magnus felt as friendly and comforting to the skin as any living being ever had.  
They were dancing close, their hands each on the other's waist. It was not a fancy movement, with no ornate flairs or twirls, but an intimate one, their bodies pressed together as they swayed to a background melody of Prosperine wind and string instruments. It was peaceful. It was comfortable.  
It was interrupted, because no matter how the Khan tried to focus his attention on his partner, no matter how much he tried to steer his mind each time back to their slow, synchronised steps, his train of thought drifted down again and again to his hips, just above which the Sorcerer's hands rested.  
They were the problem; they were wrong. Curved in a way they shouldn't be, because although he had lost the extra weight that came during the mating period, the structural changes to his body had not yet reversed, so the Khan forcedly endured an omega-like shape, which caused acid to rise in his throat whenever he saw or imagined it and left him feeling alienated from his own body, like it wasn't really his and he didn't really want it to be, and he hated it.  
Magnus shifted his grip, once more dragging the Khan's attention to the regrettable state of himself.  
_You look like an omega._  
But the more he thought about it and the more he failed to not think about it, the worse he felt; this was supposed to be a tranquil time for the two of them to be together and enjoy each other's company. It was not supposed to be taken up by his inability to stop brooding.  
"Is something wrong?" Magnus murmured, which made the Khan feel even worse because now he _had_ broken their quietude.  
"Not really."  
_Soft, child-bearing hips._  
Magnus moved his arms to rest on the Khan's shoulders, hands joining behind his neck.  
"Is this better?"  
Jaghatai didn't speak at first as he didn't think that any words could ever possibly express how much of a difference it made that Magnus always accepted his feelings as valid and did what he could to mitigate them without fuss.  
"Thank you," he told him honestly, because that was a start. 

The two met again in a small, still chamber, surrounded by elaborate trimmings of lustrous metals gleaming under the light of the decorative lumens. Apart from them, the room was unoccupied, and apart from their argument, silent. Perhaps reluctant to ruin the peace of the rest of the chamber, the two speakers huddled together in one of the corners, one with his back to the wall while his dissenter leaned his shoulder against the perpendicular one while he spoke.  
"I've already said, no," the objector was hissing.  
"What's the worst that could happen?"  
"What's the worst that could happen! He could _know_. _They_ could know."  
"Vulkan, brother. He won't tell."  
"He would still know," the objector complained mutinously. "Our secret would not be ours anymore."  
"We can be three instead of two."  
The protester huffed.  
"I don't need a different alpha."  
"But you want one. Don't you?" was the present alpha's reply as he intently watched his mirror. "And so do I."  
"We have each other. You're enough."  
"Yet the last time you returned to your natural hormones, you started to moan that I'm always absent, too small and don't dominate properly."  
"He's twice our size."  
The alpha didn't respond with words at first, only smiling at the omega, his twin, a hint of suggestion in his eyes. Then, when the other frowned back, he let the smile drop.  
"I understand your worries, brother, I do. But I intend to pursue him and you are in my way."  
"And so I intend to be!" the omega hissed.  
The alpha chuckled as he continued to observe the objector, an act of genuine amusement.  
"You're acting in a way that I believe our dearest brother Roboute would term 'hysterical'."  
"How so?"  
A shrug that suggested that the speaker did not entirely agree with the sentiment he had just proposed.  
"Why say it, then?" the omega asked.  
Apparently deciding that this strayed too far from their original conversation, the alpha ignored the question.  
"I believe that he is right for us. For you. And I know you want him too, even if you have your reasons to claim otherwise.  
"I've been watching closely and I don't think he will let us down, brother. But I would like to be united in this with you, as we always have been in everything."  
Silence stood between them, not an intimidating one but sincere and faithful.  
In the end, no matter how they equalised their hormones, the objector would always by nature be the omega; after a few more seconds, he resolved his face into a defiant glare and said, words quite at odds with his tone of voice,  
"I trust you."  
But it was the words that were genuine. The alpha knew this and smiled in triumph.


	4. Liar, Liar

Vulkan had not expected this of Alpharius's chambers, although if he were honest, he wasn't sure what he _had_ expected; perhaps a dark, scaly labyrinth of rooms lit by minacious green lighting, or perhaps a high-tech warren of Alphariuses all industriously attending to their various tasks in front of monitors, augurs and data terminals. What he got instead was a startlingly normal cream-walled room laid out with a low table and a few chairs, occupied by precisely two Alphariuses each taking up one of the seats opposite the entrance, both sitting in the same imitation of a casual pose with a glass of dark carmine wine supported in one hand which, when they sipped from it, they did so in exactly the same manner. As he also should have envisaged but failed to, in the air hung Alpharius's usual indeterminable scent, a confounding mix between that of an alpha and an omega, which Vulkan knew upset a number of his alpha brothers, the more conservative ones especially.  
"You came," said the Alpharius on the left, sounding unsurprised.  
"It would have been impolite not to," Vulkan replied, nodding to them both in turn as, despite his usual ability to identify his brother primarchs, he could not in this case differentiate the real from the fake — he knew that the real Alpharius was before him, but not which one he was.  
"It would have been," the one on the right agreed with a friendly smile that looked undeniably odd on the Lord of the Alpha Legion's face.  
No, Vulkan thought, it wasn't friendly; it was... He frowned. Flirtatious?  
"You wanted to show me something," he prompted, referring to the ominous note that had called him there and hoping, as he had first assumed, that Alpharius simply wanted him to make some small trinket and that there was nothing more sinister afoot. Unfortunately, the Salamander was having increasing difficulty believing that.  
"Would you like some wine, brother?" the Alpharius on the right pressed, while the one on the left added,  
"Please, take a seat."  
Neither wanting to stay in the Hydra's nest any longer than he had to nor wishing to appear rude or to ignore some genuine need of his brother's, Vulkan accepted both and watched carefully from his obviously purposefully designed and enlarged wooden chair as the Alpharius on the right poured a generous amount of clear white wine into a glass and then handed it to him, never breaking eye contact as he did so.  
Hoping that he wouldn't later regret it, Vulkan took a sip of the pale sparkling liquid, then ventured,  
"Forgive me brother, which are you?"  
The Alpharius on the left laughed while the one on the right smiled again.  
"He's Alpharius," said the one on the right, pointing to his doppelgänger,  
"He's Omegon," said the one on the left, pointing in turn.  
This potentially being a lie they had prepared beforehand, Vulkan was left forced to hope that it was actually the truth.  
"You imitate your master well," he told Omegon, trying to sound polite even though the secrecy rankled him.  
The Astartes gave another lazy smile as he licked an opaque crimson drop from his lower lip.  
"Brother, you are far more intelligent than this."  
Brother?  
"There are two of you," he murmured aloud as the realisation hit him.  
Two primarchs? No. One primarch, two people. Two twins, so identical that they could never be distinguished but by their own choice, unless—  
Frowning at them, Vulkan ran the possibility through his mind: the bare minimum of genetic difference required, the practicality of somehow mixing hormones, those irritatingly unintelligible pheromones — and the fact that they were drinking red wine, while he was drinking white. He could smell it in the air, now; they were not drinking wine.  
Vulkan thought for a second longer, trying to figure out what to say, what to do, if he should be angry at their secrecy or honoured to have been let in on the secret. "The hormones must wreak havoc on your bodies," he said at last.  
"Not much," replied Omegon, "we are the same, after all."  
"Not exactly."  
Apparently displeased by his disagreement, the primarch on the right narrowed his penetrating blue-green eyes.  
"Enough."  
"More importantly," the one on the left drawled, "it wreaks havoc on the minds of the likes of you."  
The Salamander raised his eyebrows.  
"That is not a worthy goal."  
"And is our current goal worthy?"  
"What would that be?" he asked, suspecting that he knew the answer but doubting that he could have read the situation correctly; the gifts, the smiles, the sudden divulging of what had to be their most closely guarded secret — they all seemed to point to one motive, one that was so strange and so unlike the Alpharius any of them had known before that Vulkan was sure he must be being played with. If he were not mistaken, the two were proposing that he be the co-alpha of a fellow alpha and his omega — although they apparently weren't about to tell him which was the alpha and which the omega. Vulkan was not in the habit of lying to himself, so he had to admit that he found himself more than a little interested in the idea of this relationship.  
"Was that not obvious?" Alpharius pouted into the dregs of his wine glass as he tipped his head back to finish it.  
Unwilling to give up so easily, Vulkan held his nerve and waited as the twins shared a calculating look into the other's eyes before turning their attention back to him.  
"Would you like us to show you something else?" 

Alpharius had always relished the feeling of being in control, taken pleasure in the experience of giving commands and watching them be obeyed, of scheming, planning and micromanaging, of knowing what was about to happen, when, how, and why — because he had given the command; to be in charge was to be in his element, doing what he did best and what was natural to him. He had only ever felt truly comfortable in the company of himself — and, depending on one's definition of the self, Omegon — and so always had a hard time relaxing in the presence of others; it was rare for him to let his guard down, especially under the judging stares of his fellow primarchs.  
But Vulkan was _warm_ and _strong_ and when he one-armedly clutched Alpharius into his broad chest like this, it made him feel a little like he was floating. And he didn't mind one bit.  
There were some benefits to omega hormones, he drowsily acknowledged as he snuggled closer, more feeling than hearing the rumble of Vulkan's chuckle, the large alpha adjusting the position of his arm to better cocoon him in his heat. Yawning, Alpharius let himself sink deeper into his bliss, only to have it abruptly interrupted by the sound of Omegon's voice cutting through the room and his mind.  
"Co-alphas, then?" He, too, sounded sleepy and untroubled, apparently sharing in the same contentment that Alpharius was experiencing.  
Vulkan rumbled some more.  
"On a few conditions," he agreed, which was more than Alpharius had expected; he had been fully convinced that the Salamander would turn them down and so was already mourning the loss of his body heat and solid muscle.  
"Yes?" Omegon asked on behalf of both of them.  
"I don't want to have to deal with either of your lies. None of your I am Alpharius and he is Alpharius — if I ask who you are, or which one you are, I want to know the truth of it without your games. If we are to be mates, do not try to deceive me."  
"Not bonded mates," Alpharius interjected to clarify.  
"That would make it too obvious that we are not the same," agreed Omegon. "But we will not endeavour to mislead you. What else?"  
"I want you to sort out your war strategy."  
"What's wrong with it?"  
"Too inefficient, and certainly too many collateral deaths. Your egos are not worth that many lives."  
Alpharius felt his mouth drop open; even if it were true, never had he expected to be so brazenly accused of that. Reopening his eyes, he tilted his head up to look at their brother, just in time to see that Omegon was already leaning over him, propped up on his forearms on Vulkan's chest, their faces level, and close. It was only then that Alpharius realised properly the sheer, comical scale of the size difference between them; Omegon looked like a child staring into an adult's eyes and the weight of his entire body seemed to barely affect the immense primarch beneath him.  
Red eyes and blue held each other's gaze for a few moments longer, then Omegon nodded.  
"We will look at it, brother."  
Shocked and outraged, Alpharius now lifted himself up on one elbow.  
"By what authority does he have the right to interfere in the workings of our legion?"  
"By his authority as our co-alpha," Omegon informed him as he sank back down out of view behind Vulkan's massive chest which, Alpharius had to admit, was entirely correct. He satisfied himself with huffing and settling back down into the curve of Vulkan's left arm, where a gigantic pitch black hand started to soothingly stroke his side.  
"Is that it, then?" Vulkan asked, sounding a little surprised at the lack of resistance.  
"We'd like to add an extra stipulation," replied Omegon, "being that our secrets are secrets and that they are _not_ to be shared with even your closest confidant." Vulkan must have given some form of non-verbal agreement, as his twin next said, "That's settled, then."  
"That's settled," the Lord of Drakes concurred. He turned his burning gaze down to Alpharius. "We can share him."  
Stiffening, Alpharius stared back before he realised their mistake; neither he nor Omegon had remembered to change hormones for several hours, and now that their last dose was wearing off, they were easily separable as alpha and omega.  
Seeming amused by his shock, Vulkan smiled down at him and kissed the top of his head tenderly, pulling him yet closer and rolling over to hold the public face of the Alpha Legion with both arms.  
Maybe it wasn't so bad, Alpharius thought as Omegon climbed over their new alpha surprisingly deftly, coming to rest on Alpharius's other side to cuddle him too. His alphas — both his twin brother and his new partner — were warm, comfortable and calming around him, Vulkan's caresses gentle and his lips soft, Omegon a comfortingly intimate yet platonic heat, neither going anywhere. Vulkan, perhaps, hadn't been such a bad idea; Omegon had won, this time. 

The room was as it always was: rustic and warm, lined with furs and packed with trophies, one roaring hearth at each end. Leman Russ, who had been sat petting his wolves, leapt to his feet and growled at the newcomer. "What do you want?"  
"Your father thought that you would appreciate my company."  
"Did he?"  
"Yes, my lord."  
"You shouldn't be here, Constantin," the Wolf King snarled, giving in to his urge to move.  
"Why not?"  
"Because—" He snarled again, face contorting as fanged teeth were bared. "I don't know if I can control myself. You _affect_ me, Constantin. And I don't know what I might do to you, if I lose control."  
"I have always known you to have quite admirable self-control, Lord Russ," Valdor reasoned, trying to make sense of what the other was saying.  
All at once, Russ turned on him, growling again deep in his throat, and came to stand over him, barely an inch away.  
"You don't understand," he hissed.  
"Help me to."  
The primarch leered down at him for several more long moments before, at last, something seemed to snap.  
"Fine. But don't say you weren't warned."  
Suddenly leaning down, Russ smashed his lips against Valdor's, harsh and unrestrained in a way that the Custodian had never experienced before, even when Russ had committed similar acts. There was something feral and predatory in this, wild and untamed.  
The Wolf King drew back, gaze hungry. "Run, you fool."  
Valdor shook his head. He couldn't if he wanted to.  
They stood for a few seconds more, both breathing heavily, then Leman gave into his yearning again and this time, did not stop.  
Pushing closer as he kissed, the primarch started to run his hands over Valdor's body, seizing and creasing the rich cloth of his robes in his fists, tugging before he let go again to find another piece of fabric to ruin.  
It took a few seconds, but eventually Constantin realised that he ought to be doing something instead of just standing. But what to do? He desired to make Russ happy, and this seemed to be what he wanted. Valdor knew the theory of sexual contact, even if the sentiment of it passed beyond his comprehension, so he decided to start easy, with reciprocation, and so began to clumsily copy the movements that the primarch's mouth was making against him.  
Russ let out a pleased noise, but stopped again.  
"You don't have to pretend," he told him, voice huskier than his usual tone, "if you don't want to do it."  
"If it makes you happy, then I want to do it."  
Expecting Russ to be further satisfied and continue immediately, Valdor was surprised when he pulled back farther, scowling and growling yet more.  
"We've spoken about this before. I have no wish to force myself upon you. Now, as I have said previously, if you have any objection, any at all, you must speak it."  
"I have none."  
When Russ snapped, spittle flew from his mouth and flecked the skin of Valdor's face.  
"You said you wish to make me happy. If that is what you wish, then speak the truth." Russ turned his face away slightly, looking to the side and down as a shadow seemed to pass over him. "I could not live knowing that I have hurt you."  
The truth?  
"My lord," he began, "I do not know what this means to you. You are right, I do not understand. You seem to attach a lot of value to it all, and a lot of emotion. But to me it is just an act. Or a series of acts, if you will. A mere physical exertion. Whatever sentiment it is that you associate with sexual intercourse, Lord Russ, you need not concern yourself with its effect on me."  
Heavily sighing, Russ tilted his head forwards so that their foreheads touched.  
Valdor knew that the man in front of him had always taken so much care to try to ensure that the Custodian had a voice in what they did together, and expended so much energy worrying that he suffered from a lack of say. He only wished that he knew how to properly comfort the Wolf King, to tell him that it was alright, and that he could let himself go.  
As he breathed in Russ's air and felt the febrile press of his skin against him, Constantin suddenly had an idea. Simple as it was, it was not something that had occurred to him up to that moment, and the thought of going through with it caused him an uncertain feeling which he identified, at length, as trepidation.  
Raising himself onto his toes to properly reach, he gently pressed his own lips to the primarch's, although he left it a tentative gesture until Russ finally responded, enthusiasm back in full force and this time, seemingly without bounds.  
From there, it was a matter of trial and error to attempt to figure out what Leman liked, imitating the movement of his lips, hands and body, discovering what elicited a gratified reaction, and what got his hands smacked away along with a warning not to try to touch Russ's buttocks again.  
Clearly, there was something more to this than simply what he did, Valdor did back.  
But it was a learning curve. There was something thrilling in this, he thought, in taking an active role for the first time instead of the passive one to which he usually consigned himself.  
Russ was yanking at his robes now in a different way, roughly trying to get them off, and Valdor had seen too many items of his clothing torn irreparably in this manner, so he removed his hands from the primarch's body and caught his muscled arms, calling him to cease.  
"My lord, I need these robes."  
The Wolf King responded immediately, his movements softening as he undid the fastenings and, breaking their kiss to do so, carefully pulled the many layers of garments over Valdor's head.  
The air was warm against his skin, heated by the crackling fires. Pleased with what he saw, Russ took a moment to growl, an animalistic sound, which brought Valdor's attention to the fact that the wolves had, at some point, gone. It was just as well.  
The primarch was removing his own clothing now, discarding it on the floor with far less care than he had had for Valdor's, and began to guide him through the room to a door that led to his bedroom.  
A window was open there, letting the cool breeze of the upper Terran atmosphere brush their skin as they reached their final destination: the bed.  
It really wasn't bad, Valdor thought as he was pushed down onto his back and Russ settled on top of him; he really didn't mind.  
The act meant nothing to him but he could still enjoy the sensations of the crisp mountain air on his skin and the warm body that shielded him from it, the coarse embrace of furs beneath his back and the gentle caresses of the alpha who wanted him.


	5. Twenty Weeks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just as a quick warning, there is violence going on it this chapter, so beware.  
> That aside, I hope you enjoy it, and as usual, I'd love to hear your feedback.

Just one week a year was all Russ needed for Constantin to be his; although he would like to have more, a bond only needed to be maintained in one out of every three heats. But he had asked many times for Constantin to join him in the heat and each time the Custodian had refused.  
"You're _mine_ ," he had insisted more than once.  
Constantin had given him a verbal essay on how he was actually the Emperor's.  
Furs sweeping about him, Russ stalked through the corridor, consciously ignoring the image of perfect domestic bliss Dorn and Guilliman gave off as they passed; purposefully failing to observe the complementary pheromones of each bonded couple in the air; intentionally paying no heed to Magnus's delighted cry of,  
"There you are!" as the Khan entered through the same doorway that Russ was leaving by, flanked by his Chogorian companions. If even the cyclopean sorcerer got to be happy with his chosen mate, then surely Russ deserved to be as well.  
Leman Russ followed his feet to the training arenas, a vast area populated by pairs and groups of sparring figures whom he paid no heed while he walked by, until — the barest whiff had Russ's head snapping around, poised and alert as he searched for his mate. The scent was still fresh, so he had to be there somewhere, and — yes, there. Narrowing his focus, the Wolf King observed through slitted eyes.  
Constantin was duelling Fulgrim and, although he was holding his own well enough, Russ could tell that he was losing. The alpha was beating him. Was beating _his_ mate.  
The howl had left his lips before he knew it and, equally quickly, he found his brother on the floor beneath him, silver hair splayed in the dirt as he writhed beneath Russ's fury, desperately trying to free his arms to block him from his vengeance, pleas for sanity bubbling up past the blood and out of his lips.  
Russ did not relent. He had no intention of doing so, but then someone grabbed him around the chest and hauled him away from his target, pulling him back with a strength that could only be post human. Not waiting to see who it was, Leman thrust his head back into this new attacker's face, feeling the satisfying crunch of a breaking nose, and then threw his head forwards again to bite deep into the arm around his shoulders, acid glands dripping as he put them to use.  
And then the taste hit him. Russ knew that taste.  
He stopped struggling and, when Valdor tentatively released him, turned to face his future mate, hormonal anger raging through him, urging him to lash out at the Custodian, who did not have the benefit of placating omega pheromones to safeguard him. What he did have, though, was Russ's hormones, which screamed to protect him, and so, although the primarch surged forwards, arm raised to strike him as punishment for daring to put himself in harm's way, the hit never landed, the alpha wresting himself back under his own control even as Constantin prepared to dodge the worst of the blow.  
Breathing heavy, he stared at his chosen for several long moments, then succeeded in asking,  
"What in the name of the Allfather did you do that for?"  
"You attacked your brother," Constantin told him matter-of-factly.  
Russ gaped at him.  
"I was saving you!"  
"My lord, I did not need saving."  
Russ glared some more, preparing to deliver a rebutting lecture, but then the steady drip of blood from Constantin's face led his gaze down to the swollen mess of an envenomed wound that took up most of the room on his mate's left forearm, and he stopped.  
"Apothecary," Russ announced instead. "Now."  
He grabbed Valdor's good arm and began to drag him away from the scene, deaf to the Captain-General's protests, looking back only to see that Mortarion had now arrived and was standing over Fulgrim — although whether he was there to help or enjoy the show was anyone's guess — and that Ferrus had also materialised from somewhere and was making his way over, before he also noticed that his love's arm had now turned an especially horrific shade of purple and so yanked him onwards, through the gobsmacked crowds, towards the lifts. 

"You should rest, my lord, while the antidote works," the Apothecary finished at length, not venturing to glance up from the wound he had just finished working on to look at the man he addressed.  
Russ nodded; he knew already that the Space Marine would not dare try any other form of treatment than what he had thus far, nervous about the glaring biological differences between his expertise and the physiology of a Custodian. Fortunately, Constantin's face had mostly healed itself and, while the flesh of his arm had corroded into the bone, the acid no longer seemed to be taking active effect beneath his pristine bandages, and had apparently not been able to spread far through his blood.  
About to speak to confirm that his chosen mate would be staying as per the Apothecary's suggestion, Russ was surprised when a different voice spoke up.  
"No, that will not be necessary."  
The alpha stared.  
Beyond his original objections, Constantin had remained very quiet and so for him to talk now — to protest against his prescribed medical treatment, no less — was shocking to him.  
"You must rest," Russ insisted, "so that you will recover better, as the Apothecary has said. I demand it."  
He had expected Valdor to take exception to this but neither could nor would ever have predicted the cold stare the Custodian gave, impassive and expressionless.  
"I have duties, which must be seen to. You have done _quite_ enough, my lord."  
"Do you not want my protection?" the primarch persevered.  
"Wolf King," Valdor's eyes flickered momentarily from his bound arm to the flecks of Fulgrim's blood on Russ's face to Russ himself. He seemed confused and perturbed in a way that Russ had never thought possible of him. "No."  
The alpha reigned in a disgruntled, self-derisory snort.  
"Well, go then. Go now. I won't make this offer again, Constantin."  
Russ wished that Constantin had hesitated, that he had shown some indecision, that he had paused to ask if Russ was sure.  
He didn't; Valdor simply stood up and walked purposefully towards the door, leaving without a second glance.  
Staring after him, Russ bit down on the growl that tried to escape him and swallowed a surge of bitterness, which seemed about to overwhelm him otherwise.  
"A lesson to be learned," he told the Apothecary, "always make sure they have a heart before you decide to love them." 

+I've won.+ The Emperor's projected voice was dark and contained an ominous chill that made Malcador shudder and draw his robes tighter around himself, in spite of the fact that he was many miles from its source.  
"Our bet, my lord?"  
+Yes.+  
"What happened?" Malcador pressed, hoping to find the source of his master's displeasure.  
+Leman Russ, attempting to protect Valdor, managed in the process to both bite him and break his nose.+  
_An entirely relatable mistake,_ he thought but did not say to Revelation, for He did not seem in the mood for jokes.  
"I see," the Sigillite responded instead. "Protect Constantin from what, might I ask?"  
A deep sigh passed between them.  
+He was duelling Fulgrim at the time.+  
"Is he alright?"  
+Well,+ Revelation murmured into his mind, +his body will recover soon enough, even if his pride won't.+  
They sat for a while, each in the other's company, mulling over this break to the long, pleasant drought of violence.  
_I will have to get the full report later,_ Malcador decided as he ran one index finger along the grains of the wood of his desk. The silence remained for several long seconds, before the Regent found it pertinent to ask,  
"So, what do I owe?"  
Suddenly, the frigidity in the air dissipated a little.  
+I'll tell you tonight,+ The Emperor assured him, mental voice now warm and benign.  
"You will?"  
+You'll like it, don't worry.+  
"I trust you," Malcador told his master, and he meant it.  
+I know.+  
Again, their mental link persisted, this time in a more agreeable silence until, without warning, it was broken on Malcador's end by the sound of his heavy oak door hitting the wall adjacent to it.  
Leman Russ stormed in.  
"I don't know what to do about him," the primarch said in a distracted manner, such that it seemed as though he was addressing no one, although he stared into the Sigillite's startled face. "He plagues me, my every thought — plagues me! And yet I think that he sees me as the plague." The Wolf King stopped, sighed, and only then seemed to focus his chill eyes on the old man before him.  
"Hello," Malcador ventured.  
"What am I to do?" Russ replied, eyes turning down and shoulders bunching together in his perturbation.  
"Why don't we start by going for a walk?" the Regent decided, not needing to ask to know exactly what the primarch was talking about. "I have a meeting I was going to drop into, but I have a little time before that. Enough, at least, for a precursory talk. Come!"  
Standing and taking his staff from its bracket, Malcador beckoned the Wolf King back out of the door. 

Although few ever dared ask, Rogal Dorn knew that many people wondered how he managed to balance being, at the same time, a stoic and dependable leader _and_ a good omega in a traditional bonded relationship. The answer was rather simple; while yes, he was stalwart and strong, this did not mean that he had to be so all the time. Sometimes, it was nice to just let go of his tough persona and devote himself fully to his alpha, safe in the knowledge that Roboute expected nothing strenuous of him and would protect him and care for him, as he cared for his mate; he could not deny that he found it peaceful and relaxing to give up, to submit, and to let somebody else take control of him and make his decisions for him. Similarly, though, just because he had his omega nature did not mean that he had to give into it all the time — he could play the role of imperturbable primarch of the Imperial Fists and Praetorian of Terra perfectly well, when he had to. This was the role in which he was currently employed.  
He was meeting with the Chief Custodian, as he did regularly, to review the works taking place on the Palace and discuss the security implications, both of them standing over a large and comprehensive map which would never be made available to anybody outside of this room, ironing out the finer points of their many inevitable disagreements as clusters of workers listened unceasingly to their every word in case they should be called upon to do something. In one corner, sitting on a specially placed chair with an open book on his lap was Roboute, taking no part in the meeting but observing nonetheless.  
Normally, Dorn's alpha was like a safety blanket, his mere presence — his rich, intoxicating scent — acting as a reassurance that _Alpha is here_ and _he will protect you_. Today, however, was one of the days on which the Ultramarine was more a distraction than a comfort; Guilliman's present annoyance soured the room, affecting Dorn's own internal state and spooking the omega's nerves such that he had to make an effort to prevent his hands from shaking, willing himself not to succumb to the instinct to return to his alpha's side and let Roboute shield him from whatever had caused his irritation.  
Dorn knew the source of his alpha's ire, although that source seemed oblivious.  
"Is everything alright, Lord Guilliman?" Valdor had asked several minutes ago, when Roboute had growled in response to him stepping a little closer to Dorn in order to point to a watchtower on their map. Guilliman had only glared harder such that Dorn had deemed it prudent to step away from the table and take a few minutes to soothe his alpha.  
Now, Rogal had returned to the map, but Roboute was still uncharacteristically angry; the list of offences was simply too great. Firstly, there was Valdor's ongoing crime of being neither alpha, beta, nor omega, and having a lack of pheromones to match, something that disturbed the senses of alphas and omegas alike; Roboute, Dorn knew, like many alphas, was far more upset by this than he was himself. Secondly, the Captain-General had arrived to their meeting late. Dorn was pretty sure the alpha in the corner was more offended by the perceived affront to his omega mate than the tardiness itself, which was frustrating as the Praetorian himself was not especially bothered; it happened semi-regularly that one of them would have a prior engagement overrun and, indeed, although the old man was not officially required, Dorn had expected the Sigillite to have wandered in by now. This time, however, Valdor had made no attempt at an explanation for his lateness after his brief apology. Thirdly, the Custodian, upon arriving over half an hour after their agreed-upon start time, had made the dreadful mistake of greeting Dorn first and Roboute second which, on top of everything else, had only further fuelled the alpha's fury.  
With tension levels so high, there was only one thing left to happen: the spark. And happen it did.  
It was the most innocent of actions, well intentioned, innocuous and naive of the consequences it would bring, but that hardly mattered, because one moment Valdor had moved his hand to nudge Dorn's off of an area of the map so that he could indicate it, and the next, Rogal had been pushed behind his alpha faster than either of them could react or even comprehend; there was the speed of a Custodian, there was the speed of a primarch, and then there was the speed of an alpha who thought that their mate had been threatened.  
The Custodian was stumbling back from the force of the shove by which Guilliman had separated them, off balance and putting pressure on the table through his left arm in an effort to stop his momentum.  
_Not that it will work,_ thought Dorn; someone as large as Valdor, even out of armour, would be far too heavy to arrest their movement with only a table.  
_And,_ Dorn continued to himself, _surely he should know that._  
Giving way to the force now being applied to one of its corners, the table began to move along the floor, map flapping off and the opposite end swinging around as it did so.  
And then, very suddenly, Rogal Dorn saw that one of three things was about to happen. The table's trajectory would cause it to swing into the space where he and Roboute were standing, its momentum such that the smaller officials would be swept easily out of its path. The first outcome, then, was that Dorn did not manage to dodge out of the way and the table hit him; Roboute would immediately turn his attention to his mate in distress, giving Valdor time to draw his blade, and thus win the fight. Given that it would give the Custodian the longest time to prepare, Rogal thought that this was the preferred option. The second was that the omega moved from the path of the oncoming table but his alpha did not; Roboute would be sent stumbling from the force of the furniture hitting him, giving Valdor time to draw his blade, and thus win the fight. The third outcome, which would give the Captain-General the least time, was that both Dorn and Guilliman avoided the table, Roboute's forced backwards movement not only ensuring that there would now be a large table between the two, but also giving Valdor time to draw his blade, and thus win the fight.  
But then, a fourth thing, something Dorn could not have predicted, happened. As the omega swiftly stepped to the side of the table's path, he saw, in what seemed to be even slower motion than he was already experiencing this event — which in reality, took barely a second — Valdor's face change, his widening eyes reflecting shock and surprise as his arm suddenly buckled, giving way beneath him and causing the Custodian to lose his balance.  
In the time it took for Constantin to roll back to his feet from his end of the table, Roboute had also recovered from being shunted heftily to the side, and the Chief Custodian's advantage was lost.  
A stalemate broke out, primarch and Custodian eyeing the other up from their respective side of the room, both tensed and ready for combat. It was a true stalemate, though: in the time it took for Constantin to reach for a weapon or move to call for back up, the alpha would be upon him, going straight for the throat; in the time it took for Roboute's muscles to bunch up and send him springing forwards to attack, Valdor could dart to one side and arm himself, ready for the next strike.  
Gritting his teeth and clenching his fists, Dorn took a moment to survey the room at large, balancing his options for how to get out of this situation, then hesitantly stepped forwards, reaching out in an attempt at placation.  
"Alpha-"  
Without taking his eyes off of his opponent, Roboute shoved him back behind him, to where his alpha considered it safe for Dorn to be.  
"Alpha," he whimpered again from this alpha-approved distance, but Guilliman was too caught up in his task and continued to ignore him.  
While he reconsidered his options, Dorn forced himself to stop grinding his teeth; he knew that Roboute would be upset with him for doing that when he was back in his rational mind.  
_Rational mind._  
That was where Dorn needed to be as well, if he hoped to find a non-violent resolution to the current predicament. It was at times like this, however, when his omega aspect grew to the fore and became increasingly demanding; at present, it was insisting that he seek to shelter the 'normal' humans in the room, their comparatively small size igniting his own protective instincts, of the maternal sort — Dorn knew that he would never be able to think straight while under the influence of this compulsion. Breathing slowly and struggling to ignore his deep-seated _need_ to pull the officials and scribes to his chest and mother them, the omega stepped further back from the stand-off before him and began to usher the extraneous people in the room around the table and out of the door.  
The long moments of tension dragged on as the chamber emptied and fell into silence, until the door creaked open again, and Malcador the Sigillite edged into the room. Pursing his lips and not — _not_ — grinding his teeth, Dorn tried to figure out how this arrival would affect the situation.  
On the one hand, the disturbing lack of clarity in the old man's scent would likely further infuriate Roboute, him being in full alpha mode as he was — _biomancy,_ Dorn thought with no small amount of disdain.  
It was one thing to use such powers, as the Emperor did, to avoid the less convenient aspects of your sex without the need for suppressants or blockers, which often came with nasty side effects; it was quite another to use them to confound and conceal your true sex.  
On the other hand, perhaps the Regent of Terra would be able to do something that the Praetorian, while under his alpha's such zealous protection, could not.  
"Gentlemen," Malcador began as the footsteps of his erstwhile companion receded down the corridor. The Sigillite opened his mouth again to continue — hopefully, to say or do _something_ that would end this fighting — then he stopped.  
At once, it seemed that everything had stopped, apart from the incessantly whimpering omega instinct Dorn had compressed into the back of his mind. Everything had stopped, including the footsteps outside.  
Malcador swore.  
As the footsteps slowly prowled back along the corridor, Dorn found himself meeting Valdor's eyes and never before had he so related to the Custodian as when he saw the deadened dread that came to dominate his features as Constantin, like Dorn, recognised the pattern of the approaching footfalls.  
In the brief time before the storm hit, Dorn took a moment to damn these alpha hormones, that they could turn two perfectly reasonable men into snarling, raging animals.  
_Or, in this case, one perfectly reasonable man and Leman Russ._


	6. Caged

Once, when he was much younger, Roboute had taken it upon himself to excuse himself from a scheduled session with one of his tutors and hide out in the library instead, amusing himself with what he considered to be far more engaging topics than simple astrophysics. It had been Konor who had found him, towards the end of a four hour-long search through half of the city, and his adoptive father had scolded him for his unannounced absence before leaving him for a time to think on his behaviour. On reflection, Roboute had quickly noticed the flaws in not telling those responsible for him where he was going and had felt quite ashamed of the short-sightedness of his actions.  
It was a similar guilty shame that he was experiencing now, sat next to Russ while their father attended to some other matter on the other side of the heavy wooden desk between them. Guilliman felt like a child.  
He glanced over to his brother, who had calmed down considerably since the Emperor had pulled them apart, and held back a sigh. Maddening as it was when Russ started to laugh after a fight as if it were all just some silly joke, Roboute now found it unnerving that his brother hadn't started to chuckle, shown a waggish grin, or even made a humourous comment in the time since their brawl.  
He absently inspected his torn right sleeve as his thoughts moved onto his mate, wondering where he was, and if he was alright without Roboute there to support and look after him. Guilliman guessed that Rogal would probably now be continuing the meeting — without him — with Valdor, wherever the Custodian had gone; it was a sensible thing, really, that he had left soon after the fight had started, as with Valdor gone, the source of Russ's protectiveness and aggression was also removed. With that in mind, maybe Roboute should have allowed Dorn to leave as well, but that would have meant letting his mate pass near the aggressor, and that would never do.  
The alpha sighed. He hoped that any of stray droplets of blood that had gone flying throughout the confrontation had not found their way into his mate's hair; it would be especially hard to wash out of Rogal's white locks, and Guilliman was loathe to let his omega be seen looking scruffy in any way.  
Roboute looked up and a second later the Emperor did too, turning His eyes of black inferno on the two of them and seeming, in a non-physical way, to sigh. He did not speak. He did not have to.  
Several seconds passed as they sat, the two primarchs both equally uncomfortable beneath their father's gaze. At length, Russ's subdued growl broke the silence.  
"Will I have to go on suppressants, then?"  
Roboute shuddered. He was aware that threat had been made a few months ago, the last time his brother had got into a fight, but given the headache such medications had always caused Roboute on the occasions he had taken them, he was unsure of how they were supposed to make anyone less belligerent. Opening his mouth, he prepared to argue that it had actually been him who had started the conflict, until he realised that their father was shaking his head.  
"If you can stay out of trouble for the next few weeks, I have another idea."  
Russ narrowed his eyes.  
"What?"  
"You'll find out soon enough."  
The Emperor looked from Russ back to Roboute, then turned His gaze to being fixed on both of them at once.  
"Both of you are at fault," He told them, as if in response to Guilliman's thoughts — _probably_ in response to Guilliman's thoughts. 

They left the room together with their heads down and their metaphorical tails tucked tightly between their legs, both still a little bloodied and bruised from the scrap, even if the worst of their injuries had healed in the hours since the Emperor had pulled them apart.  
If he were honest, Roboute was still in shock from being told that he was no longer allowed accompany _his mate_ to meetings, because how was he supposed to protect his omega by leaving him alone in a room full of people he, the alpha, didn't like or trust? Nevertheless, he did his best not to dwell on that issue.  
"So you won't be going on to suppressants, then," Roboute said as they headed down the corridor, hoping to change the downcast mood of their current companionship.  
"Apparently," Russ replied gruffly.  
"I'm glad, brother. That was a stupid fight."  
"Yeah," the Wolf King growled. "How did it start, anyway?" 

The Khan was zooming around the last bend to hurtle at a speed beyond break-neck into the home straight when Magnus arrived in the courtyard. Although he was not the only rider out on the make-shift track the White Scars had appropriated from the more normal users of this area of the Palace, Jaghatai was the only one the alpha cared to watch, a thing of beauty even in the form of a high-speed blur — and so watch Magnus did, because he already knew from trying that his mind would not be so easily torn from its thoughts of his mate and set onto a more productive track. The sorcerer had studied and meditated all morning and most of the afternoon, so he reasoned that he was quite entitled to take a break, to see his beloved for a time. Not that the Khan would want to see him; Magnus didn't need to look as his mate dismounted his bike to see the graceful movement as he slid out of the saddle or the brief, disinterested glance the beta threw his way before he walked in the other direction to join a group of Astartes instead of Magnus — he had already seen it.  
Sighing as the Khan's bike was taken away for maintenance, the Crimson King then allowed his gaze to drift over to his mate. Upon seeing that he was surrounded by his keshig — including Qin Xa — the primarch stifled the growl that came to his throat and watched more intently, although he tried to pretend that he wasn't.  
More time passed and still the alpha's mate barely spared him a glance.  
Magnus was about to turn back inside and attempt to return to his studies when he felt a presence brushing up against him, clumsy, fumbling and uncertain.  
_So much wasted potential,_ the alpha thought mournfully. Nonetheless, Magnus fixed his attention on the other and waited for him to speak.  
+You can join us, lord,+ Yesugei said into his mind. +He does not mind.+  
+No?+ Magnus thought back as he immediately began to make his way around the courtyard, splitting the crowds of Astartes separating him from his mate like he would slice a sheet of parchment.  
+No,+ the zadyin arga agreed. Then, while Magnus was still approaching, the Stormseer added,  
+The Khagan thinks you're sulking.+  
Magnus scowled, because he was _not_ sulking and nor had he been, but a brief scan of the Khan's soul did nothing to either confirm or deny what Yesugei had said.  
+How do you know that?+ the sorcerer asked; Yesugei of all people should know better than to try to speak for Jaghatai.  
By this point, Magnus had almost reached his destination and was able to overhear the conversation his mate was having with Xa and one of his Noyan-Khans, concerning the likelihood of the Legion getting off the 'foul planet' any time soon.  
"He told me," Yesugei said aloud, not only drawing Magnus's attention back to their conversation, but also bringing the Khan's attention to it as well.  
The Warhawk looked between the two of them as Magnus took his place by his mate, linking one of his arms with the beta's as he forcefully positioned himself between the Khan and Qin Xa, glaring around at any other alphas in the area in order to warn them away from his mate.  
"Who told you what?" the Khan asked Yesugei in their native Khorchin.  
Magnus pouted.  
"I wasn't sulking."  
His mate simply laughed, glancing again between Magnus and the zadyin arga in renewed comprehension before he returned his gaze to the make-shift race track, contemplating his gene-sons as they flew with a small kindling of pride in his tawny eyes.  
Magnus, for his part, watched the Khan, enjoying mapping the small crinkles of his weather-beaten face.  
At length, the sorcerer sighed, shook himself from his observation, then spoke.  
"He hasn't told anyone yet, but I think Guilliman's planning a dinner party."  
Instantly, his mate's scent changed to reflect his lack of enthusiasm at the idea.  
"We could not go."  
"I dare say he'll be expecting us."  
The Khan grunted.  
"What if you were to collapse only a few hours before? I'm sure I would then be obliged to miss the event to care for you." Finally, _finally,_ the Khan spared a sidelong look for his alpha. "We can be unsociable together."  
"Just like in the good old days."  
Looking thoughtfully down at his mate, Magnus shrugged.  
"You always say that we alphas have so much indomitable pride, Jaghatai; I would much prefer it if you were the one to faint."  
The Khan rolled his eyes.  
"A mere case of a fainting subordinate mate would not warrant his alpha's absence from such an important social event, I'm sure."  
"Oh, _such_ an important event." 

Rogal Dorn scowled at the window. Even though it was tightly shut, the sounds of the White Scars doing whatever it was they were doing in such a large gathering blasted through with the same effect as if they had each taken bolt guns and fired them up at the pane.  
Dorn dearly wished to go down there to give them a piece of his mind — not least because he was sure that the Astartes had already been informed that the Palace courtyards were _not_ designed for jetbike races and were _not_ supposed to be used for them — but his brother was with them, and he doubted that the savage hunters would pay heed to the words of another primarch when their own apparently approved of their actions. The worst Dorn would be able to do, then, would be to give the Khan a meaningless reprimand, to which he would not listen, and as much as the omega was prepared to rebuke any one of his brother primarchs when he felt it was required, he knew that Roboute would not appreciate him exposing himself to such conflict.  
_And now Magnus is there as well,_ Dorn thought irritably upon giving in to his urge to lean over and glance out of the window to glare at the actual source of his vexation rather than the innocent crystal.  
Clenching his teeth against the sound of someone whooping far below, the omega forced himself to return to his designs and shut out all irritations. It would not do to be tense when his alpha returned.  
A knock sounded and, before Dorn could respond, the door was opening and Leman Russ was letting himself into the Praetorian's study.  
"You shouldn't be here," Dorn told him immediately, pointedly not looking up from his desk.  
"I know," the alpha replied, "I just need your help, then I'll be gone."  
Dorn glared up from his work, noting Russ's stifled snarl at having an omega stand up to him.  
"Roboute—" he began to explain.  
"Doesn't need to know," Russ finished for him, which only served to further rile up Dorn's temper.  
" _My alpha_ —"  
"Rogal, please. Five minutes, then I'll be gone."  
Ordinarily, Dorn would have continued to press him to leave, because he knew that he shouldn't be meeting alone with other alphas, but something in Leman's voice made him pause for just long enough to hear his next words.  
"I need you to help me apologise to Constantin," Russ told him earnestly, spreading his open palms in a sign of honesty and non-aggression. "I hurt him and—"  
What most people didn't realise was that omegas actually had a lot of natural strength and ferocity; the difference between them and alphas — of whom these traits were generally perceived — was that alphas were much more easily driven to demonstrate such characteristics. Nevertheless, as part of their intrinsic maternal instinct, every omega had a yearning to protect, waiting beneath the surface for some fool to trigger it. The fastest way to provoke this instinct would be to threaten a child in an omega's care, but it could also be brought about by someone harming another omega — and apparently, as the recipient of an alpha's attention, Valdor fell into that latter category.  
"I didn't mean to," Russ assured him quickly, backing away from Dorn's growling. Him being an alpha, it would be heavily looked down upon for him to get into a fight with an omega, especially without the omega's alpha present — even if the omega started it.  
"I was trying to protect him, Dorn, he just got in the way. That's all. Calm yourself, Omega."  
It was a good thing he was bonded to another alpha, Dorn thought as the Wolf King's pheromones hit him, demanding that he obey the alpha, that he submit. If he had been unbonded — or even bonded to Russ — the potent scent would have crippled him and sent him melting to the floor, now that Leman had promised that there was no one who needed Dorn's protection. As it was, the omega felt his knees wobble and weaken such that he was forced to seize the edge of his desk with all of his wavering strength in order to keep himself standing, his cheeks flooding with sudden hormonal heat and his throat tightening with the need to defer.  
If he were not under the influence of these pheromones, the Praetorian would have glared at the alpha who had done this to him, but he could no sooner bring himself to resist than he could banish the rest of his hormones to some far-away exile, and even if he could, judging by the look on Russ's face as Dorn staggered to his nearby chair and collapsed into it, the alpha had acted instinctively rather than deliberately in the use of his pheromones.  
It would be because of Constantin, Dorn realised while waiting for his vision and mind to clear, that his brother's pheromones were so effective — the Custodian likely did not react at all to Russ's chemical signals, and so the alpha's body made them stronger and stronger in an attempt to affect his chosen.  
Dorn sighed, breathed in as deeply as possible while trying to avoid inhaling the residue chemicals in the air, and finally managed to look back up at his brother, though he found he still dared not meet his eyes.  
"You wanted my help," he muttered, voice little more than a rasp. The room was far too hot for Dorn, but he still lacked the strength necessary to get to the window to throw it open.  
His brother gave him a dubious look.  
"I hurt Constantin, by accident, while trying to protect him from Fulgrim."  
_Fulgrim?_ He wasn't the least likely candidate to have been threatening a Custodian, but nor was he the most.  
Russ must have seen this in Dorn's expression as he sighed, ran a hand down his face, and admitted,  
"They were only duelling. My hormones— I got carried away, and then when Constantin tried to pull me off the peacock, I didn't realise it was him, and I bit his arm. Quite badly," he added, scowling at the floor.  
"When?" Dorn managed to whisper in reply, his fuzzy brain slowly pulling itself back together and starting to figure things out.  
Russ snorted as he began to pace.  
"You know that fight between me and Roboute? That morning."  
"His left arm?"  
"How do you know?"  
"He wouldn't have needed your help that afternoon if his left arm hadn't given way beneath him," Dorn told the alpha honestly as full clarity and comprehension momentarily broke through the hormonal barrier and came to him, although sweat still dripped down his back. "That was why he was late as well, wasn't it?"  
"He did say something about having other stuff to do," the Wolf King agreed.  
"Then if you hadn't been trying to protect him, there wouldn't have been any conflict at all, that afternoon," Dorn informed him, finding the strength he lacked in his realisation.  
"It's all my fault, then," Russ snarled.  
"You have some fault, yes," the omega agreed, "but Roboute still let his emotions and hormones get the better of him and overreacted, so he should take most of the blame for starting it."  
To Dorn's surprise, Russ laughed at that, a low, guttural sound that infiltrated the whole room.  
"You wouldn't tell Guilliman that."  
It was still far too hot in the study.  
"I would if he asked my honest opinion."  
Russ snorted in reply.  
"He won't, will he? _We alphas_ do not normally come to _you omegas_ for advice and honest opinions. But—"  
"Maybe if you did, you'd get yourselves into less trouble," Dorn retorted, but the alpha ignored him.  
"— here I am, come to you for your advice and your honest opinion, so please, help me."  
Again, there was that tone of desperation that had first made Dorn listen to his brother instead of kicking him straight out.  
"You haven't told me what exactly you want, yet."  
"You're right," Russ conceded, turning as he reached one of Dorn's walls and beginning on his way back to the other. "I need to apologise to him, and I want to show that I mean it, so I was thinking maybe give him a gift, but I don't know what he likes. You spend a lot of time with him, in your meetings, so I thought..."  
Rogal ducked his eyes lower under the alpha's expectant gaze.  
"I don't think I can help you there," he answered at length, although the remnant hormones left in his body urged him to aid the alpha in any way he could. "You might be asking the right question, but you're asking it about the wrong man. If Valdor has any desire for material possessions — and beyond what he needs to do his duty, which he already has, I doubt he does — he has not shared it with me."  
In spite of that he couldn't have expected anything else, Dorn still felt deflated when he saw how Russ reacted to this.  
"Well, it's been more than the five minutes I promised," the alpha concluded, turning one final time to head to the door. "Thank you for your time. And patience."  
"Leman!" the Praetorian called, worried Russ was about to leave; he still wished to help and he had more to say.  
Russ stopped with one hand on the doorknob.  
"I may not be able to speak for Constantin Valdor, but what most omegas want is just for the alpha to admit that they've done wrong. To say sorry and mean it. Your sex as a whole is," he paused, trying to find the right words, "utterly useless at that."  
The Wolf King chuckled.  
"It's true."  
"Valdor's a philosopher, like any Custodian — he may well appreciate the sentiment far more than any worldly gift you could give him."  
The Wolf King let his hand slide from the ornate wooden door handle as he considered this, then nodded, the first hints of a real smile — not cynical, not mocking, not self-deprecating — twitching at his lips. He looked thrilled.  
_He really, really cares about this,_ thought Dorn.  
"I suppose I'd better practise," Russ announced eventually, turning fully to offer a slight bow in Dorn's direction.  
"I'm sorry I messed up your hormones... I didn't mean to affect you in the way that I did. And you look very uncomfortable, so I'm sorry for that."  
Surprised, the Imperial Fist took a few moments to respond, finally settling on saying,  
"I appreciate you saying that, brother."  
Russ grinned back.  
"Thank you for your help," the alpha said genuinely as he returned to the door, then paused to look back, again with that doubtful expression on his face. "Will you be alright if I leave you? Your hormones."  
Dorn nodded.  
"I can tell Roboute to come if you want."  
On the verge of reassuring the Wolf King that he didn't need his alpha, Dorn stopped; just because he didn't _need_ his alpha, it didn't mean that it wouldn't be nice for him to be there.  
"He should be back soon anyway — you know he doesn't like to leave me alone for long — but if you see him—"  
"I'll tell him his mate needs him," Russ promised.  
He opened the door and began to let himself out, hesitating only to shoot Dorn another concerned look — perhaps his appearance was still worse than he thought, or perhaps his own pheromones were now affecting the alpha — and say,  
"Look after yourself, now."  
_I was just fine before you came along,_ Dorn thought as the door swung closed then, just before it clicked shut, something occurred to him.  
"Russ!"  
Almost instantly, the alpha reappeared.  
_Open the window,_ the Praetorian almost demanded — felt quite entitled to demand, given that Russ was the reason he was currently sweltering — but then he realised that this would likely get him nowhere with the alpha.  
"Would you open the window for me, please?" he asked instead, playing off on his perceived helplessness, and the way he knew it would compel the alpha to assist him.  
Leman apparently picked up on this, as he laughed while he crossed to the window and did as he was bidden, saying,  
"I suppose that two can play that game, Omega."  
As the cool breeze hit his feverish skin, Dorn managed to return the smile in spite of the increased noise now invading his office.  
"Take care," Russ was saying as he made to leave for a third time, then he stopped yet again to add, "and tell Roboute it wasn't my fault. I'm supposed to be staying out of trouble."  
This got a real, if small, laugh out of Dorn before he was left alone with the sweat tracking down his face, the sound of the White Scars in the courtyard far below, and the work he was now never going to get done today.  
And damn Russ that he came across with such childlike eagerness, which made Rogal's maternal instinct itch yet more.  
The Praetorian frowned down at his diagram one last time before he leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. Perhaps, when Roboute returned, they could sort out the details of that dinner he was planning instead.


	7. Moving On

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah... So at this point, I'm just going to put out the disclaimer (perhaps a little late) that I'm aware that I'm not portraying Guilliman in a good light at all. I don't know why, but he just sort of turned out that way in this fic, so I hope you don't mind it too much. 
> 
> As usual, I'd love to hear your thoughts and feedback, but other than that, enjoy!

Leman Russ had just entered the Tower of Hegemon. This, in itself, was nothing unusual; what was unusual was not that he had come, but that he had not come, for over a week and a half since what the Emperor darkly referred to as ' _those_ incidents'.  
The Captain-General of the Legio Custodes tracked the primarch's path on his cogitator screen, switching views as required to keep a firm eye on the Wolf King. He would ordinarily expect to see Russ heading towards the section of the Tower where the Custodes slept but today, the primarch followed a different route, moving steadily towards Valdor's office.  
The Custodian watched.  
If he wanted to, he could deny Russ entry, barring the entrance and securing the room. However, as the primarch drew nearer, he instead gave the order that the two were to be left alone to talk, although a guard should be assembled outside the door once Leman had entered, just in case.  
Valdor's left arm, mostly healed, twinged. Sparing the limb a single glance, he watched and waited until the primarch's heavy knock landed on his door.  
"Enter."  
The doors glided open to reveal a somewhat fraught-looking Leman Russ.  
"Constantin," he muttered as he pushed his way into the spacious room, surging forwards until he hit Valdor's large, tidily cluttered desk, and came to lean heavily on it through both of his arms. "How is your arm?"  
"It's healing," Valdor told him. Russ made a move as if to indicate that he wished to see, so the Custodian gently rolled his sleeve up to reveal the waxy mass of scars and half-healed skin that now made up a large part of his left forearm, still a little sunken as the burnt-away flesh beneath it regrew. "Your father expects that it will recover fully with time."  
"Good. Look, Constantin, I— ah, I wanted to say that I'm sorry."  
"You're sorry, my lord?" Valdor asked, unable to deny that he was surprised to have heard those words.  
"For wounding you," Russ added glumly. "You know I didn't mean to, but... I'm sure you didn't appreciate it, so I'm sorry."  
Oh. A primarch admitting that he had done something wrong.  
_A rare sight indeed,_ the Captain-General thought to himself as he carefully lowered the grey sleeve of his robe once more.  
"And also for what happened after, with Guilliman. I guess I should have learnt my lesson and not intervened, but—"  
"No," Constantin said swiftly, before the Wolf King could move on.  
Russ laughed at him, a cynical noise that broke the stillness of the room.  
"No? Do you not accept my apology, Valdor?"  
"I am most grateful for your apology, Lord Russ," the Custodian assured him quickly, "but you do not have to apologise for what happened that afternoon. Although you could have dealt with the situation a little better, I am thankful for your intervention in that instance."  
"Oh."  
Something flickered through Russ's face, a sardonic expression that remained for less than a fleeting second before he cleared it and added,  
"I'm not a complete failure, then."  
Seeing the look of hope that came with that utterance, Valdor couldn't help but feel fond of this primarch, for whom he'd always held a soft spot.  
"Not at all, Lord Russ."  
The corners of the Wolf King's mouth twitched up a little.  
"I think that's the nicest thing you've ever said me, Constantin."  
The primarch tapped his fingers along the edge of the desk, for once not pacing. There seemed to be something on his mind, although Valdor could not divine what it was.  
"My lord?"  
Looking up, Russ delicately removed his hands from the desk, shifting restlessly from foot to foot but resisting the urge to wander.  
"I was just wondering if it might be nice for us to spend some time together. You know, _properly_ , just the two of us. Like a date."  
"A date?" Valdor asked, a feeling of apprehension building, which was not familiar to him.  
"Dinner, maybe a walk through the gardens, or something else, if you'd prefer. How about tonight?"  
That was something Valdor could easily answer.  
"I will be busy."  
"Tomorrow?"  
"Busy, my lord."  
"The day after?"  
Constantin did not even have time to ask before Russ, reading his expression, had pulled a face.  
"The day after that? Ever?"  
"Lord Russ, I have work to do. I will try to find the time, if you wish, but I cannot promise you anything."  
The primarch heaved a sigh.  
"I suppose that's the best I could have hoped for. Well," he chuckled, shook his head, and sighed. "Do you know, you're the dullest person I've ever met?"  
"I am, my lord?" Valdor asked, unable to dignify this with a response he felt more proper.  
For several moments, their conversation lapsed into a slightly awkward silence, then the primarch spoke again.  
"I used to hate you, you know," he began, apparently in response to some sudden urge. "I loathed you. I detested you, your order, and everything you stand for." Russ sighed again. "But now, I just want to have you for my own. For you to be mine. Truly mine. Funny how love is, isn't it?"  
"Yes, Lord Russ," the Custodian agreed, again wanting for a better alternative.  
Russ grinned suddenly and leaned across the desk to grab his head gently and press a kiss to his temple.  
"Ah, Connie."  
If he were a man of any less self-control, Valdor would have twitched at the nickname, although he wasn't sure he greatly minded it.  
"Don't call me that, please."  
"Ah, Constantin. I'll make you mine yet." 

Alpharius, Vulkan had learnt, was a strange one. Although at times he could be as cuddly and affectionate as any omega, at others, the Lord of the Alpha Legion would push him away, often quite suddenly and with no real warning. However much he might like to exercise tight-fitted control over his own legion, Alpharius never quite seemed sure of what he wanted for _himself_ , which left Vulkan to simply try his best to accommodate whatever need it was that Alpharius was expressing at any individual moment in time and hope he was doing the right thing.  
Omegon, too, had his quirks. The alpha had the — in Vulkan's opinion — uncomfortable habit of vanishing at times for days or even weeks, and Vulkan was sure that, if he stayed with the twins long enough, Omegon would begin to leave for longer lengths of time. Alpharius had never seemed in the slightest disconcerted by this, and when Vulkan had thus learnt that these disappearances were actually premeditated and planned Alpha Legion operations, they had fortunately come to the agreement that the two would at least give Vulkan warning that his co-alpha was going to leave, and for how long he would be gone.  
It was nicer to be prepared to be left in charge of a sometimes needy omega, but Vulkan still found that he wished Omegon would spend more time at home rather than running around the Great Crusade; it was hard to get to know him when he was rarely there.  
But they both had their charm and, when Vulkan looked deep into their eyes and found himself ruminating on their more cruel behaviours and peculiar mannerisms, and how that could possibly relate to the past of which they would not speak, he caught himself feeling that perhaps, he could help them; perhaps, he could be the one to teach them compassion, kindness, and love.  
Which brought him back to the still weight lying atop his chest, bronze cheek pressed to Vulkan's right pectoral muscle. When they had first adopted this position, Vulkan had tenderly petted his omega's bald head but after a while, as he was wont to do, Alpharius had batted his hand away, so the alpha had ceased his actions and resisted his urge to at least wrap an arm around him instead.  
Unusually, with Vulkan's stroking hand gone, Alpharius had not then moved away, instead staying snuggled up on top of him with the covers thrown off, which was their current arrangement, and not too uncomfortable a one either.  
Unfortunately, Vulkan couldn't stay.  
"I have to get up soon," he warned his omega, again refraining from stroking an arm down Alpharius'ss back for the sake of the smaller one's comfort.  
Alpharius whined.  
"You're warm," he complained, which, just as much as the smell of the pheromones he was emitting, told Vulkan that the hormones he had taken were starting to wear off. Alpharius, under the influence of his natural hormones, was quite the whiniest omega that Vulkan had ever come across; he was an insufferable whiner such that Vulkan had wondered briefly at times whether the fact that the twins shared hormones was truly just about being truly identical, or whether it was also a clever ploy of Omegon's to not have to deal with his brother's incessant moaning. Indeed, when he considered that Omegon had been gone for a few weeks and was still a further few from returning, Vulkan began to wonder whether _he_ was just a clever ploy of Omegon's to not have to deal with the omega's whingeing.  
"I need to go to a meeting," Vulkan pressed when Alpharius continued to lie still, "come on."  
"But I'm _warm_ ," replied the omega.  
"The bed will retain some of its heat, and when I come back —" Vulkan stopped, looked down at Alpharius, then lifted himself up onto his elbows to get a better look, jostling the omega in the process; he ignored the whining. "The meeting is supposed to be of all primarchs," he reminded his omega. "That means that you have to go as well."  
Alpharius shrugged.  
"I can get someone else to do it."  
"You should go yourself."  
"I'm sure we can arrange for someone to go in your place as well, Alpha."  
Alpharius had rarely called him that and so the name sent an electric tingling throughout his body which, combined with the wide sapphire eyes that met his, was almost enough to make him change his mind; the thought of lying there with Alpharius, doing nothing but cherishing his not-quite-mate, was indeed an appealing one. Almost, but not quite.  
"If you don't go," Vulkan made himself tell the omega, "I can't give you cuddles afterwards."  
Alpharius made a noise of protestation somewhere halfway between a whimper and a groan.  
"But I'll be cold."  
"Not if you get dressed."  
"It's warm here," Alpharius tried again.  
Apparently, it was time for Vulkan to put his foot down and dominate his disobedient omega.  
"Get dressed and take your hormones," he instructed, allowing a cautioning growl to deepen his voice. "Then, we're going to the meeting."  
Pouting as he did so, Alpharius nevertheless detached himself from Vulkan, slithered from the bed and did as he was told. 

They took a detour around the Palace to ensure that the synthesised hormones Alpharius had injected straight into his bloodstream had time to take effect and, when they arrived, found the council chamber already filled with most of those who were expected to be in attendance. Most prominent among those assembled were their brothers. There was Roboute, fussing over Dorn — the alpha didn't seemed to have formed a grudge against Russ and was enlisting his help in ensuring that the silent omega remained flawlessly groomed. A little to their left, Horus and Sanguinius were holding hands as they charmed the socks off those around them, while closer to the door, Fulgrim was running his hands all over Ferrus as his mate tinkered with some small device that didn't look safe to touch. Vulkan couldn't help but smile at the sight of those two; the alpha had never known an omega who was less like an omega in his life, but Ferrus had an amazing capacity for putting up with the Phoenician's fussing, especially given that the Gorgon was hardly known for his patience.  
Looking around at the rest of his brothers, Vulkan took his seat, then looked to Alpharius, who had done the same; although the Salamander would have happily allowed the omega to sit in his lap for the time being so they could continue their cuddling, Alpharius seemed keen to keep his distance.  
_No doubt,_ Vulkan thought, _for the sake of his pride._ Alpharius would not want to look weak in front of their brother primarchs.  
Throughout the room was the low level hum of chatter, which buzzed in Vulkan's ears, presenting to him snatches of conversation to listen in on more closely if he wished, although he chose not to, instead waiting for when the door opened again and the hubbub was replaced by the clattering and rustling of a room-full of people getting to their knees.  
Even amongst the most senior commanders of the Imperial Armies, the primarchs had previously dominated the room and now, in the same way, the Emperor stood out alone and supreme among them, His intrinsic power flooding the room, washing out the weak imitations of might given off by His sons. He wasted no time to impress His authority on the occupants of the chamber because He didn't have to; it came as naturally to Him as living did.  
With the Emperor came an entourage of Custodes — Russ stared unashamedly at the Captain-General, who walked to their father's right — as well as the Sigillite, leaning heavily on his rattling metal staff as the group took up their places for the meeting to start.  
There were few highlights to these Crusade review meetings they had periodically, not least because most the information being shared was actually already available to the sufficiently conscientious military commander. Perhaps those brothers of Vulkan's who were more inclined to war would disagree, but he preferred the gatherings to remain short and sweet. Nevertheless, there was always the odd moment of interest, such as the regular rivalry between the Ultramarines and the Alpha Legion over who could declare the greatest number of Compliances won (both primarchs claimed to be above such petty competition, but neither actually was), or when, in the last meeting, Leman Russ had become so enraptured by watching the micro-movements of Valdor's fingers that it had taken Dorn roaring the Wolf King's name at the top of his impressively capacious lungs in Russ's ear to bring him swearing back to reality, or the time that Konrad had one of his seizure-visions just as the meeting was being called into session and, before the Emperor had been able to calm him, had ripped out several of Sanguinius's feathers and nearly decapitated a naval commander with a swiping claw.  
This meeting had few remarkable events — although the level of smugness with which Alpharius announced one more planetary Compliance than the Ultramarines was astonishing — until it came to the end and the Emperor asked if there was anything more any of them desired to say. Silence followed on for a few seconds, then the unmistakeable rich tones of Jaghatai Khan broke through.  
"My Legion grows restless; they would like to rejoin the Great Crusade." He paused, looked right at the Emperor, then added, "And so would I."  
Vulkan, along with the rest of the room, expected this to be denied immediately, and so it was much to his surprise when their father smiled.  
It wasn't a humoured smile, as if He had found something funny, and nor was it the kind smile of one about to reject a request; it was a cooler smile, a pleased one, one that said that the giver of the smile had planned for this.  
"Of course," said the Master of Mankind, and everyone stared at Him — everyone save for His Custodians and Malcador, who must surely have been in on this. "I have noticed that some of my sons grow restless without the enemies of the Imperium beneath their blades, and that the great work of our fleets in unifying all of mankind has been slowed by their absence from the Crusade itself. However, there is still purpose to their remaining on Terra. So it shall be that, while most of the primarchs stay, I shall permit a few to return to the fore of our armies for short periods, in order that we may strive ever harder towards the dream of a unified mankind." He looked directly towards the Khan, and added, "Deployment details will be distributed shortly."  
The meeting ended then, on the wave of that shock, and its participants began to disperse. As he stood to leave himself, Vulkan glanced towards Alpharius, silently asking if they would return to Vulkan's bedroom together. Raising his chin as he stood, the smaller returned the look and they met at the door, arms rubbing comfortably as they walked down the corridor. 

Striding briskly towards his personal chambers from the latest logistical meeting he'd attended in the process of preparing for his Legion to leave Terra, the Khan couldn't help but feel that finally, in the near future, he could see _space_ to move, act, and be how he felt. It was the room he needed to run free — free from his brothers, from the cloying atmosphere of Terra, from — well, from _Magnus_.  
It wasn't that Jaghatai didn't love his partner, nor that he didn't enjoy the time they spent together, nor even that he didn't appreciate the concessions Magnus made to the Warhawk's wild nature; it was more that he suffocated under the sorcerer's ebullience, protectiveness and jealousy. Of course, he would miss his partner — but more, the Khan thought, Magnus as a person than Magnus as an alpha.  
At the end of the corridor ahead, Guilliman and Russ appeared. The Khan sighed. They would no doubt meet in the hallway and, for all the other two both liked to talk of brotherhood and family, they would no doubt ignore him; amongst the more traditional alphas, it was considered impolite to address another alpha's mate without the alpha's permission — even, apparently, when that person was your brother. The Khan, for one, was certainly not going to force them to acknowledge him.  
As the two parties approached, they did so in the silence the Khan had predicted, until a door behind the Warhawk opened and then, as if by magic, Guilliman found reason to call out in greeting,  
"Brother!"  
But he was not addressing the Khan.  
Dodging to the side to avoid the incoming hug from behind — he had a point to prove to the two alphas in front of him — the Khan nevertheless allowed Magnus to clasp their hands together as the sorcerer came abreast with him, having jogged to catch up.  
The four of them met in the middle of the hallway and Roboute beamed.  
"I was just saying to Leman that you're all invited to dinner. It will most likely be our last gathering before some of our brothers leave, so I do hope you can make it."  
The Khan gave Magnus a sideways look, because he had noticed that Guilliman had not only nodded to him when making reference to those primarchs who were leaving, but Russ as well. His partner returned the look in a similar fashion, before answering,  
"I'm sure we would be delighted to attend, brother."  
Roboute smiled his polished smile.  
"Would a fortnight tomorrow be convenient, or do you think that your mate might be a little busy so close to his departure?"  
Magnus's mate who was standing _right there_ — and even Leman Russ seemed to be aware of the particular lack of tact in the phrasing of Guilliman's question.  
Unconsciously, the Khan's hand detached itself from Magnus's and found its way to his belt where, upon finding that his sword wasn't there, it settled on a knife instead.  
"I'm sure I'll manage," he informed the Ultramarine with as much acid as he could muster.  
Magnus was watching him. Like always, his one eye was intense and intent, scanning through the layers of the Khan's annoyance to search him at a deeper level. Gently, the Crimson King reached his hand back out and dragged the Khan's away from his weaponry with a tender squeeze, entangling their fingers once more. As Jaghatai glared forwards, Magnus leaned his ruddy face in to gently kiss his cheek and whisper something in his ear that might have been, 'I love you'.  
In the world around them, Russ and Guilliman were bidding their farewells and moving on, Roboute underlining that the Space Wolf could, of course, bring 'someone' with him to the dinner. The Khan ignored them, though.  
Turning to face his partner, he allowed Magnus to bring them closer together, so that everything that could touch was touching — their bodies, their foreheads, their noses. With anyone else, it would have been uncomfortable.  
"I love you too," the Khan whispered into his partner's warmth.


	8. Formalities

Although he had seen it many times before and spent countless hours mapping its every immaculate angle and edge, Leman Russ couldn't help but glance around the room as he waited. Nothing had changed, save for the ever-switching pile of books on the bedside table, although even these had been arranged so fastidiously that it appeared they had been there forever, naturally fitting into their allotted corner of the table with the same inherent belonging as the chill that covered the ice plains of Fenris.  
Tilting his head, Russ read the titles on the spines of the volumes. They were, as ever, mostly philosophical, although he could distinguish elements of biology from some of the titles, and — _The Dynamics of the Sexes_. Now _that_ was an interesting title to see on Constantin Valdor's reading list. For a moment, Russ reached out for the book, wondering what its presence in the stack could mean — if it could mean what his mind desperately rushed to believe it did — but then he retreated; to look further at the book would be to disturb the pile, and the alpha had no intention of giving his desired mate any reason to regret the given invitation, if he could not restore the pile to order before Constantin arrived.  
More minutes passed.  
As he trod the familiar path of Constantin's hard, pale, uninteresting floor, Russ felt the anticipation building within him, bubbling up and making him buoyant in the air around him, unable to resist bouncing a little on his toes. Constantin Valdor, the love of his life and haunt of his thoughts and dreams, had invited him on a date.  
It wasn't a date, really; Constantin had merely agreed that the alpha may join him and hang off his arm as he inspected the walls, but — it _was_ a date. Their first date.  
Leman laughed to himself at the thought, as it certainly wasn't the most romantic first date, nothing like you might expect to see in a cheesy pict of some lovers' tale.  
But it was better to laugh, at least, than to let the creeping thoughts in his mind dig their way into his consciousness; by now, whenever Russ waited in Constantin's quarters, it was habit to worry that Valdor was avoiding him — that the Custodian didn't want Russ there and was waiting for him to leave before he returned to his chambers — but this time, Constantin had told him they would meet here, for their not-date. Constantin _wanted_ Russ to be there.  
He smoothed the fine furs he had chosen to wear that afternoon, turned on his heel, continued his pacing, and then stopped.  
The door had opened.  
Constantin was in full aureate armour, the baroque suit gleaming in the light. Tucked under his arm was his helmet, with its red plume neatly positioned to flow out behind the Custodian's elbow.  
Russ wished he wasn't wearing his armour, because that meant that there was a significantly lower chance of anything happening in private after their not-date.  
_Not that what he is wearing means anything about whether or not he wants to have sex,_ Leman reminded himself sternly.  
"Lord Russ. You were able to come, then, at such short notice," Constantin was saying.  
Russ snapped back to attention.  
"Of course. It's not a problem at all."  
Constantin looked then as if he wanted to say something but, in the end, he didn't.  
Beckoning the alpha to follow, the Custodian turned and reached for the door handle, about to lead them out into the hallway, then paused.  
"My lord, you do remember what I said to you this morning?"  
"It's not a date," Russ recited. "But I get to hold your hand, don't I?"  
Valdor's reply was to smile, a small gesture that the primarch treasured — Custodians were generally not expressive beings, and Constantin was certainly not given to show humour, or fondness. In fact, before that moment, Russ had been sure that Valdor only had two emotions: impassivity and rage.  
Outside in the hall were a number of people, both human and post-human, who joined them as they made their way to the walls, carrying parchment, dataslates, and a whole variety of other things that they would presumably need.  
Russ would have rathered that they did not have Constantin's entourage tagging along on their date. However, considering that he had promised his chosen _not_ to try to make this walk a date, he knew he couldn't complain.  
It was _definitely_ a date.  
"Why do we have a primarch with us?" one of the Ten Thousand asked as the group made its way through the corridors.  
"Because he wouldn't leave Constantin alone," replied another, before Russ could explain that he had been invited.  
The alpha scowled. That wasn't true — was it? He'd only asked for a date once and while yes, he had visited his chosen mate on a number of occasions, that was just what he usually did, and Valdor hadn't asked him to stop.  
Clutching the warm metal casing around Constantin's arm a little tighter, Russ turned his head to observe the gold-clad figure. His eyes fell to the pointed helm in the crook of the Custodian's other arm.  
"May I carry your helmet for you?" he offered, before he could really think it through.  
Valdor looked surprised. Then, he looked like he was about to decline, until he hesitated.  
"My lord, is there a reason for you asking... As an alpha?"  
_So it seemed he_ had _been reading that book, then._  
"It's just courtesy," Russ told him, although his efforts to brush it off were hindered by a sudden gruffness in his voice. "It's polite to offer," he added.  
While they walked, Constantin looked at the primarch for several long seconds.  
They turned a corner into another corridor, this one on the outside of the Palace — they had nearly reached the walls.  
"If you wish," Constantin said at last, and so Russ took the armour piece, carefully arranged the plume so as to not tangle it, tucked it under his arm just like Valdor had, tried not to beam because finally — _finally_ — it seemed like this courtship was going somewhere.  
"So you have been reading that book, then," he said at last.  
Apparently Constantin knew exactly which one Russ was talking about, because he said after a few moments,  
"Your father recommended it to me."  
They and the entourage ascended a flight of stairs up into the bright light of the mid afternoon. 

Light flooded the room as Vulkan opened the door, replacing the blue glow of cogitator screens with the harsh whiteness of the lumens outside.  
Alpharius listened as he entered, hearing the dull thuds of each of the soft footsteps and the rustling of his robes as the larger primarch approached. Eventually, Vulkan stopped.  
"If you don't get ready now, we're going to be late," he murmured, low voice easily spreading its rich tones to every corner of the room.  
Jumping in response to the large hands that had just landed on his shoulders, gently rubbing them, Alpharius nodded.  
"I know, but it's _Guilliman_."  
"And?"  
"We don't like Guilliman." He sighed, turning his head to look up at the alpha as best he could without disturbing the tender fingers working at each side of his neck. "I wish Omegon were here, then we could say mean things about him together. You're far too good a person for that."  
Vulkan hummed for a few moments, his hands pausing at the height of his pondering, then turned his crimson eyes down to meet Alpharius's and said,  
"No one is a good person in themself. A person is made good by doing good deeds." He smiled benignly at Alpharius, and added, "You could be a good person, if you tried."  
Snorting, the Lord of the Alpha Legion spared him only a disgusted glance before turning back to his cogitators — back to his data, back to his plans.  
"Don't be ridiculous."  
"Maybe," Vulkan began, moving his hands from their spot on Alpharius's shoulders to start switching off the cogitator screens one by one, in order of importance —  
"No! I still needed that!" Alpharius protested as his fleet formations went black.  
"You could start tonight," Vulkan continued, fingers hovering threateningly over the power button on the last screen, signalling him to finish up quickly, "by paying a compliment to our host when we arrive. That wouldn't be hard."  
Alpharius did the last few things he needed to do and the final screen was switched off, leaving the room black save for the light from the door; the sun had set on this part of the Palace some time ago.  
"There's one thing you're forgetting," he informed Vulkan as the alpha steered him from his chair and towards the wardrobe. "It's _Guilliman_." 

"It's nearly time to go."  
Magnus looked up from his writing with an only slightly exaggerated air of surprise, turning his head to look first at Jaghatai, who was standing in the doorway of the sorcerer's study, peering dubiously at his many instruments and charts, as he always did, then at the chronometer to confirm what his mate had told him.  
It really was almost time to leave.  
"You're right," Magnus replied, scribbling his last few words for the time being as he rose from his seat, already mentally sorting through the different sets of robes he could wear — and he'd have to decide quickly, if they were to make it in time.  
Then again, his mate wasn't dressed either — most likely, he was facing the old dilemma of dressing in a way that would make their host happy, or in a way they would make him feel comfortable in himself.  
In the time it took for Magnus's selected robes to settle on him, the Khan had still not made up his mind and, although Magnus already knew what the decision would be, he sat on the edge of the bed to wait patiently for the beta to come to that conclusion himself.  
After only a few more minutes, the Khan was dressed but then, instead of readying to leave, he instead turned to the mirror and began to comb his already shiny hair.  
"I thought you said it was almost time?" Magnus asked, more for the show of it than actually discovering the contents of his mate's head.  
"I didn't say I was ready," the Khan told him.  
Ah, yes. Ready. Ready for the judgement — the looks and delicate words that no one but a primarch would notice, and that surely a primarch should know better than to display — for the prefabricated opinions held by a number of their brothers that said that that _is not an appropriate way for someone in your position to be dressing_.  
"How long do you think we can delay for?"  
It wasn't a serious question, because they both knew that putting things off made them no less unpleasant, but Magnus nevertheless made an imitation of serious thought.  
"I don't know. How fast can you run?"  
The Khan shot the alpha an amused look over his shoulder as he set the comb back down on the bedside table.  
"Faster than you."  
In place of the comb, the beta took up a golden ring, with which he toyed for a few seconds before slotting it onto his finger.  
"Are you going to sit on the bed all day, or shall we go?"  
Magnus stood in one smooth motion and went to meet his mate at the door, and they left together. 

A warm dusk had fallen by the time the wall inspection was done, cocooning Russ and his mate in its kindly embrace as they made their way back inside, now alone.  
Around them, the corridors were quiet — they passed a few evening patrols, and several servitors trundled by, but the hustle and bustle of the day was gone.  
Although he enjoyed strolling with Constantin's arm entwined with his, Russ at length pulled them both to a stop, turning to face his beloved in the shadow of one of the many alcoves that decorated the hallways of the Imperial Palace. This one, Russ noticed, contained some priceless and ineffable artwork, which loomed above them both.  
The alpha thought for a moment about what to say.  
"Constantin... I really enjoy spending time with you, you know," he murmured at length, hoping that the sudden breathlessness that had overtaken him didn't show.  
"I enjoy spending time with you as well, my lord."  
Unable to contain his joy at that, the primarch smiled widely, then leaned down and kissed his chosen one, losing himself in the timelessness of it, of the still Himalazian air, of the clear night sky through the windows, of how Valdor's lips were soft and responsive against his own, the skin of his face smooth beneath the Wolf King's hands.  
Constantin's helm had clattered to the floor in Russ's haste to touch but the alpha did not care, and if Constantin did he did not say.  
Russ was sure there was somewhere he was supposed to be, but it did not matter; Constantin was all that he knew and all that he wanted to know, the Custodian's gauntleted hands solid against Russ's lower back, his head tilted to one side in order to clumsily kiss back. The primarch gripped his love's head through the soft fuzz of his hair, pressing them closer, and allowed himself to be lost in this wonderful, exclusive reality, in which all there was, all there ever would be, was him and Constantin, and that was the way it should be.  
The sound of a metal blade hitting the wall broke their world apart.  
Breathing heavily as he turned, Russ glared at the Custodian who had interrupted them. The Custodian stared unemotionally back.  
"Do you need any assistance, Lord?" he asked calmly, scooping up Constantin's helmet but refusing to hand it back to Leman when the Wolf King made to reach for it.  
"No," Valdor replied from behind the primarch, although it sounded more like a gasp than an authoritative assertion.  
They were both breathless now, and when Russ glanced back, he saw that Constantin's face was lightly flushed, his lips a deep, inviting crimson from the force of the alpha's passion.  
The interrupting Custodian was still there, holding his commander's helm, which he again moved away when Russ tried to take it.  
"It's alright," Constantin said, and Russ couldn't help but give a smug smile as he took the heavy auramite and watched the Custodian eventually retreat down the corridor with a small bow of his head.  
Turning back to Constantin, who still seemed to be panting slightly, Russ offered a half-apologetic grin.  
"Sorry, that was a bit sudden."  
But to his pleasure, Valdor shook his head.  
"No, I — I don't mind."  
"So," Russ began, trying to sound casual, and not as if he was really desperate for Constantin to not go, because he wasn't yet ready to say goodbye to his love for the night. "Do you have anything you need to do now?"  
"Not immediately, my lord."  
Beaming, Russ took his chosen's hand and began to lead him down the hallway.  
"Come with me." 

The table was already set, drinks were being served, and most of his brothers had arrived.  
Roboute Guilliman looked around the room, mentally checking off which of his guests were yet to come. There was the Lion, brooding in the corner over a glass of wine, and Perturabo in the opposite corner, also sunken into a sullen silence; there was Curze talking to Mortarion, and Fulgrim flitting about the room, sampling the conversation just as he did the wines on offer; there was Ferrus, making polite conversation with Corvus, who had been the latest to arrive. Who else? Angron was among those who had arrived already.  
Although the Emperor, for all His wisdom and intellect, had been unable to completely remove the Butcher's Nails, He had managed to partially disable them, leaving a different Angron to the one Roboute had known before — a less violent one who showed signs of fully functional rationality and had even, to Roboute's delight, expressed interest in such ideas as brotherhood. Currently, the Red Angel was sat on one of Roboute's armchairs listening to Lorgar's preaching with an almost tranquil look in his tortured eyes.  
Sanguinius and Horus had been some of the first to come, and both fitted in as easily as they ever did — so easily that it seemed unremarkable that they were there at all, although both were clearly remarkable people.  
That left five — Jaghatai, Magnus, Vulkan, Alpharius, and Russ, who had burst into Roboute's preparations earlier that day to apologise quite excitedly for his anticipated lateness.  
He should mingle with he brothers, Roboute knew, but his brain could not help but drift onto thinking about Rogal. His omega had ended up stuck in extra meetings, and so wasn't in the room yet, much to Roboute's dismay; although he knew that his mate would be fine — he was tough, and if anything happened, he would come to his alpha immediately — the irrational worry that something might happen to his omega away from his protection still niggled at Roboute's mind. He wished his mate were here.  
A knock on the door brought interruption to his fretting, and Guilliman jumped at once to answer it, welcoming Vulkan warmly and inviting him inside.  
Roboute made to shut the door again, then stopped when he realised that someone was still outside.  
"Alpharius," he greeted with as pleasant a smile as he could muster, "I'm glad you came, brother."  
Alpharius, for his part, smiled back, responding with unsettling friendliness and a confounding lack of sneering or petty insults. This was sufficiently unusual to give Roboute pause, staring at his brother as the Lord of the Twentieth waited to be invited inside, before the alpha recovered enough to go through the motions required of a dutiful host and, at a loss for what could have made Alpharius quite so cheerful, resolved to keep his eyes open for any tricks or deceit.  
It was interesting, though; this was the second event at which Vulkan and Alpharius had arrived together, which only gave greater weight to the as yet unconfirmed rumours that the two had formed a relationship.  
Despite himself, Roboute couldn't help but wonder what that meant for Alpharius's sex, which his brother kept so diligently confounded.  
A relationship between two alphas alone was rare, and given that the omega brothers of theirs who were single had not stopped lamenting the fact, it was unlikely that any of them had been taken as a shared omega. Roboute doubted that many people outside of the primarchs would be capable of taking the attentions of even one of them, let alone two; therefore, he concluded, it was unlikely that Alpharius was an alpha.  
_A beta or an omega, then. Interesting._  
The appointed hour of their gathering had just passed when yet another knock sounded; Magnus and the Khan had arrived.  
Roboute's alpha brother greeted him dearly and cheerily, his loud, bright voice booming throughout the room as they hugged. By contrast, the Khan was much more reserved, sparing Guilliman a simple nod and looking none too pleased to see him.  
Roboute sighed. He wished Jaghatai would understand that in order to keep the peace in their brotherhood, there were certain rules an alpha had to follow — rules such as _stay away from another alpha's mate_. The Ultramarine couldn't deny that he regretted the fact that the Khan was one brother he had not become significantly closer to during their time together on Terra.  
As the newcomers settled in, Roboute looked around the room, checking that there were enough seats — there were, he had checked already — and ensuring that all of his guests were provided for, and that none were excluded from their brotherhood. He was pleased to see that Horus had sat down with Perturabo and Sanguinius had struck up a conversation with the Lion.  
All they were waiting for, then, was Russ and Rogal.  
Striding over to the dark wooden table on which the wine was set out, Roboute poured himself a glass and wondered if they should just start now.  
_Give it a few minutes,_ he decided. He stared at the door that led to Rogal's office, then caught himself, and was about to find a conversation partner to distract himself, when the outer door burst open and Leman Russ grinned in.  
"Guess who I brought with me," the other alpha all but sang as Roboute hurried over to properly greet him.  
Really, guesswork was not required to figure out what was coming, and Guilliman wasn't sure what gave it away more: the conical helmet in the crook of Russ's arm, or the eager glee spread across his face.  
Sure enough, the next moment, Russ had stepped through the doorway and to the side, revealing Constantin Valdor behind him.  
Roboute humoured Russ in showing his surprise.  
"Welcome, both of you! Make yourselves at home. Then, shall we get started?"  
"You mean dinner?" Russ asked.  
"Soon," promised Roboute. He ushered them both further inside, and found for himself a good place from which to speak.  
"Brothers," Roboute began once he had all of their attention, beaming around the room at his seated peers. Mostly, they had now arranged themselves in their pairings, although the Khan had elected to perch on the armrest next to Horus rather than sit with his alpha, and Valdor was standing to one side of the room — more out of stiffness and aloofness of attitude, Guilliman thought, than the stiffness of his armour. He turned his gaze properly to the Custodian, wondering how he should address him; the alpha, although usually so meticulous in his planning, had written this speech under the assumption that Constantin would not be joining them. "Cousin," he added, nodding towards Valdor.  
_Yes, that would do._  
The Custodian nodded back.  
"I know that I have told you many times what great pleasure it gives me to see us all together, as we should be."  
Already, Roboute could see that some of his brothers were failing to maintain a facade of interest: Mortarion's eyes were blank and filmy; Angron — Angron, who had been listening quite happily to Lorgar's prattling — had fallen back into his old habit of drooling; Russ was gazing unashamedly at the Custodian in the corner.  
Nevertheless, Roboute pressed on, returning his attention to the speech he had learnt by heart.  
"This may well be the last time in a little while that we are all in one room, so I believe that it is important that we all take a moment to appreciate our bonds of brotherhood and remember the common goal by which we are all united: the betterment and protection of all humanity."  
The door behind him opened and, without needing to turn to look, Roboute immediately knew that Rogal had appeared through it. As his mate's sweet scent filled his lungs, Guilliman beckoned Rogal over, placing an arm around the omega and pulling him to his side. When a natural pause in his speech came up, he took the time to press a loving kiss to the top of his omega's head.  
In a room full of primarchs neither listening nor pretending to listen to a word he was saying, at least he now had Rogal.  
"With that in mind, I would like to finish this off with a toast," Roboute told the room at last, reaching for his glass on a nearby silver table as his brothers did the same, those who had been paying less attention jolting back to the present. Scowling inwardly, he forced himself to smile. "To unity."  
"To unity," they all rumbled back.  
Roboute kept his smile firmly on his face as he assured them,  
"And now, to dinner. This way."  
That, he thought, was how to get his brothers to take interest; they wasted no time in getting to their feet and following him through to the dining room.  
Dinner, at least, went smoothly — there was nothing of the sort of squabbling that had broken out the first few times Roboute had tried to get his family together.  
Roboute spent much of it in conversation with the Lion, although at times he tuned into snatches of other conversations.  
"'We'? Who is 'we'? 'We' are not going anywhere," the Khan was saying to Magnus as the first course was cleared up.  
"You and me, of course we are. We leave in only a few days."  
"No. He said that I would be leaving with my legion. Not you. You are on none of the paperwork."  
Swiftly, Roboute decided that he didn't want to listen in on that conversation, even though he couldn't help but wonder how come this was news to Magnus, of all people.  
"Oh it's just a little something I've made," Ferrus was telling Vulkan of some trinket Roboute could not see as the main course was served.  
"Are you looking forwards to your deployment?" Horus beamed at Corax during a pause in Roboute's conversation with the Lion, following their discussion of the latest political shifts to have occurred.  
"Yes," the omega answered simply.  
Well, Guilliman decided, although some relationships still left something to be desired, the primarchs' time together on Terra had been, by and large, a resounding success — and wasn't it nice to eat together one last time before they split?  
It was after the first three courses that Valdor excused himself, standing from the table with the slightest of bows to them all and beginning to make for the doorway before Russ called after him,  
"Wait!"  
The Custodian stopped and turned.  
"Your don't get to leave just like that, you know," Russ announced theatrically as he approached his chosen mate and threw his arms around Valdor's armoured neck. "Not without giving me a kiss."  
_That,_ in Roboute's opinion, _was a great deal of wishful thinking._  
Nonetheless, the other alpha appeared to truly have his hopes up and, much to Guilliman's surprise, when his brother sat back down, he did so in triumph.  
The door clicked shut and the eyes of every other primarch turned to Russ, who shrugged with exaggerated nonchalance.  
"What? Why wouldn't he want to kiss me?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "...even when Guilliman was lecturing us all to tears" — Mortarion (Scars, by Chris Wraight)


	9. How It Is

"I'm going to miss you," Magnus told his mate honestly, because the feeling was so strong already, even the day before the beta's departure, that he thought he would burst into a puddle of lonely misery if he could not somehow persuade his love to stay.  
"I won't be gone long."  
"Jaghatai." He moved forwards and reached out a hand to cup the Khan's face, taking care not to disturb his moustache, and stared mournfully at his mate, drinking in his appearance for what would be one of the last times in a while.  
In truth, the alpha was disappointed that his last, lingering view of his love would be of him in this way and not in the way he was just before or after the heat; although he would never admit it to the Khan, Magnus —  
He stopped himself there because it felt wrong just to think it, knowing the horror that that form caused his mate. His rational mind knew that but the alpha part of his mind refused to stop thinking that the Khan looked so good with the edges rounded off him, with gently curving hips and a soft face, and that piece of Magnus would not let go of the idea that he wished that his Jaghatai would transform to look like that — or perhaps, even more curvaceous — all the time, as was typical for non-primarch betas who had been bonded to an alpha as long as the two of them had been bonded.  
How he would love to run his hands over such a figure and to know that it was his.  
Once more, Magnus tried to stop his train of thought, knowing that it was _wrong_ to fantasise so about a body that his mate could not identify with, knowing that it would hurt his love to discover what was running through the Crimson King's mind.  
"You're staring."  
Oh.  
Magnus refocussed on his mate in the present rather than in his daydreams and offered a broad smile.  
"What is it?"  
"Nothing," he assured his love.  
"Nothing?"  
Trying for another winning grin, he shrugged.  
"I was just thinking that you're sexy, is all."  
The alpha stepped closer to hold the Khan's face with both hands now and leaned in for a gentle kiss which, despite his best efforts, inevitably mussed up his mate's facial hair.  
"Well," he sighed as he drew back, watching tawny eyes closely for any sign that his love suspected the true extent of his thoughts while at the same time inspecting his mind to the same end. "I was going to meditate but, seeing as I have you now, love, if we are to be parted soon, may I take you to bed with me?" 

They were tangled together in the sheets when he entered, both stark naked and with far more skin showing than was savoury. Roboute sighed inwardly, cringing away from the sight of his brothers and politely averting his gaze, even if they were technically decent. He wished Magnus had said, 'just a moment', or, 'not now' rather than, 'come in'.  
Perhaps the two had noticed Roboute's discomfort because, after a shared glance, they swiftly freed one of the sheets from the mess and used it to better cover themselves up.  
"Is now not a good time, brothers?" Roboute asked as they did so, almost hoping he would be sent away.  
"I'm sure it's fine," was Magnus's cheery reply.  
Roboute swallowed.  
"Well, in that case, may I speak with your mate?"  
The couple in the bed shared another significant look.  
"You know you don't need to ask me, brother," Magnus responded, and Roboute nodded and swallowed, cautiously eyeing them up and realising that, in order to get out of bed, the Khan would have to show a lot more skin.  
"I'll wait outside." 

Jaghatai appeared in the living room before Magnus's bedroom a few minutes later, wrapped in a simple ivory robe with gold embroidered trimming. He had tidied his hair up, straightening his beard and moustache and tying the onyx strands atop his head into a simple knot. The Khan did not sit, but eyed Roboute distrustfully while taking up position behind the couch opposite the alpha.  
"Can I help?" he asked at length, splitting the uneasy silence but replacing it with something no less uncomfortable.  
Roboute cleared his throat.  
"I merely wished, on the eve of your departure, to express my regret that we have not become closer during our time here together." He paused, wondering if he might get a response, then decided to press on regardless. "I'm not sure you're aware of the unspoken code that exists between alphas, which is why I may have come across as distant—"  
"I know."  
Roboute stopped for real this time, barely refraining from gaping at the beta.  
"You know? Then why do you dislike me? If I may ask."  
The Khan shrugged.  
"I don't dislike you." he told Roboute plainly.  
The alpha tried to form words, but Jaghatai added,  
"It's not that simple." He looked pensive for a moment, then he spoke again, voice as measured and accented as ever, but now with a hint of melancholy.  
"Perhaps, when I am returned, things will be different."  
Finding his words, Roboute responded with,  
"I don't see how they would be."  
"We'll see."  
They stood in awkward silence for several moments, then the Khan asked,  
"Is there anything else you have to say?"  
"No, brother."  
"Well go, then. Your mate wants you."  
Roboute paused in his turning, frowning.  
"What makes you say that?"  
Another disinterested shrug.  
"I've seen the way he looks at you." 

Alpharius reached for the nearest dose of hormones, injecting them into his bloodstream with practiced ease and returning to his work without missing a beat.  
He was glad that Omegon would be back soon; the natural hormones his twin gave were always, in Alpharius's opinion, better than the synthesised ones they used when they were parted.  
In the room next door, something stirred, and a few seconds later, Vulkan appeared in the doorway.  
"You've been staring at those cogitators for quite some time now," the alpha rumbled.  
Alpharius nodded impatiently.  
"I'll be done soon."  
"You said that nineteen hours ago."  
Vulkan did _not_ sound impressed.  
"Hmm... Did I?"  
When Alpharius next glanced up from his work, the alpha had come to stand over him, gazing patiently down.  
"It's time you took a break. You must be tired."  
"I'm fine," Alpharius assured him. "I'm not tired at all."  
Vulkan pursed his lips.  
"I think a walk would do you some good. Come on."  
Sighing, the omega gently rubbed his temples and took his time in replying, lest he sound too irritated.  
"I'm fine."  
"You have thirty seconds to finish up, then we're going."  
This was the problem with alphas: they stuck their noses into your business, decided your habits were unhealthy and took it upon themselves to do something about it. At least Vulkan couldn't use the facial recognition technology to lock him out, unlike Omegon.  
"You can't force me to go for a walk," Alpharius informed him confidently. Nonetheless, he made sure that he wasn't at a place in his work where there would be negative consequences if he were to leave suddenly.  
Thirty seconds came and went, and Alpharius was just about to turn triumphantly to his alpha to boast that he had been right that Vulkan could not force him to go, when a pair of large, warm, firm hands gripped his sides, and he was lifted up out of his seat and over the back, coming to rest, writhing, in the Salamander's muscular arms.  
The omega twisted and turned, trying desperately to free himself from his captor's grip without actually wanting to hurt him.  
"Vulkan!" he hissed as he felt the alpha begin to move, taking Alpharius with him. Then, when that didn't work, he tried, "Alpha!"  
Still, Vulkan did not stop, moving unfalteringly towards the door — _the door.  
No no no._  
Squirming violently, Alpharius at last managed to wriggle free, slipping out of Vulkan's arms and onto the floor just next to the doorway.  
"You can't carry me out there," he protested.  
"No?" the other asked, patiently amused. "Perhaps you might like to walk instead."  
Alpharius scowled.  
"Fine."  
Huffing his disapproval, the Lord of the Alpha Legion wrenched the door open and stalked out, waiting for Vulkan to follow him so they could walk together, then starting down the corridor in the direction of the gardens.  
It was only when they reached the end of the hallway that the omega realised what his mate had done.  
_Perhaps he has more guile than I thought._  
Stifling a yawn — he would not, at least, give Vulkan _that_ satisfaction — Alpharius resigned himself to however much fresh air and exercise his alpha deemed necessary. 

Alpharius was large in his arms, but not unmanageable, and rested quite comfortably with his head on Vulkan's shoulder and his arms around the alpha's neck.  
As Vulkan had predicted, the omega had become drowsy part-way through their stroll through the rose gardens of the residential section of the Palace inhabited by the primarchs. Although he had initially struggled on, Alpharius had eventually succumbed to the idea of being carried of his own accord, stopping in his tracks when his swaying became such that he could not walk in anything resembling a straight line and reaching his wavering arms up to Vulkan in a silent request. Vulkan didn't mind carrying his mate, and thought that he would still benefit from the fresh air, so had obliged without hesitation.  
Now, the boneless limpness that had spread throughout Alpharius's body suggested that the omega had at last given in to the urge to sleep. The Lord of Drakes cradled him and cherished his unguardedness as he perambulated through the gardens.  
Vulkan had stopped to talk to Roboute on the way back to their chambers when he felt it — the fierce, piercing chill of a gaze, or even a glare, locking onto him from afar.  
Absentmindedly answering Guilliman's polite conversation — _yes, Vulkan was actually in a relationship with Alpharius_ and _yes, he was very sweet now that he was asleep_ — Vulkan swept his eyes over his surroundings, hoping not to have to move his head and thus give away what he was doing. After a brief scan, he found what he was looking for.  
Omegon was perched in the gap between one of the windows of the building in front and the protruding tower in the corner of the gardens, watching him through the translucent glass that kept the clean air in the rose garden from mingling with the more polluted air outside. He didn't look happy, but then, Vulkan was standing talking pleasantly to the primarch they hated most with the alpha's twin nestled, asleep, in his arms — and Alpharius and Omegon cared for nothing if not their public appearance.  
Given the snoozing figure Vulkan was holding, it wasn't too hard to excuse himself from the conversation, although he felt slightly bad doing it; it was clear to the Salamander that the purpose of Roboute's walk in the gardens was to take his mind off the fact that his mate was currently alone in meetings with all sorts of other people, without his alpha there to protect him. Still, Vulkan had a co-alpha and indeed, an omega, to keep happy, so made his steady way back up to his bedroom with Alpharius's head lolling loosely over his shoulder. 

Vulkan had laid Alpharius on the bed and tucked the covers over him with a brief kiss of his uncreased forehead by the time he heard a slight rattle at the window and Omegon dropped in through it, pulling an almost apologetic grimace.  
"Ah, those Custodians are always so nosy, wanting to know why you're climbing on the walls. I would have been here sooner, if not."  
Vulkan bit back a laugh as he approached the window, scanning his co-alpha for the first time in weeks.  
"I understand that the corridors are perfectly serviceable."  
Shaking his head decisively, Omegon said,  
"Not after you've just carried Alpharius through them — they can tell, you know, the other primarchs."  
"You have a helmet," Vulkan told him, tapping the ceramite helm locked to Omegon's waist. "If they couldn't see how similar you look, perhaps no one would think to look any closer."  
"Because there's nothing suspicious about a fully armoured Alpha Legion operative walking the halls of the Palace," Omegon snorted as he moved further into the room, coming to stop over the bed and stare at his twin.  
"He really is asleep," the alpha commented after a pause. "He doesn't normally do that."  
"No?" Vulkan asked, suddenly worried — now that Omegon mentioned it, neither of the two had ever actually slept in his presence, only lain with their eyes closed and liable to reopen at the slightest disturbance.  
Maybe he sensed the Salamander's disquiet, because Omegon looked up at him from beside the bed and assured him,  
"He's fine."  
"How do you know?"  
Omegon shrugged.  
"I'm his twin. I can tell these things."  
"Really?"  
"Yes."  
"I didn't think twins having a sixth sense for each other was a real thing."  
At last, Omegon broke his eyes away from Vulkan's, turning back to the window with his face twisted.  
"We're not ordinary twins."  
Vulkan followed him, hoping to understand what had made his co-alpha's mood turn down as it had.  
"What's wrong? Omegon?"  
For a long moment, Omegon drummed his armoured fingers on the window sill and, in this time, Vulkan stared out at the Palace around them. The gardens were not visible from this window, but the spaceport was, and the Salamander could see the bustle around it as the last few White Scars departed.  
Then, Omegon's voice disrupted the peace, and Vulkan turned his eyes down to look at his partner.  
"We are one primarch," Omegon began, voice fragile. "Some would say... one soul in two bodies. And I've never discussed the philosophy of our being with our creator, but... It occurs to me that, if we really are one, it's me that doesn't truly exist."  
Vulkan took his time deciding how to respond to that, eventually coming up with,  
"If it helps, I think you're distinct."  
"How so?"  
"Well... You have different personalities. It's subtle, but the difference is there, and I can see it. You both affect the world in your own unique ways — you affect _me_ differently.  
"And you've also had different experiences — no matter how you try to share them, you can never change that. You're an alpha, he's an omega. And what you experience is formative. For example, Alpharius likes taking his hormones. You, I think, are less fond of them—"  
Omegon gave him a scandalised look.  
"How did you know that!"  
Finally allowed to meet the other alpha's eyes, Vulkan did, shrugging.  
"I pay attention. You find they weaken you, don't you?"  
Omegon nodded in a way that wasn't entirely begrudging.  
"Whereas Alpharius finds that the positive effects outweigh the negatives.  
"And so you see," Vulkan concluded, "you're both very different people, to me."  
In the silence that followed, broken only by the grating of Omegon's fingers as they ran over the wood of the window sill, Vulkan realised that the plant the twins had gifted him had not been watered yet and so, taking up the cup he kept specifically for that purpose, he filled the receptacle with water and then poured it carefully into the plant pot until the soil was appropriately saturated.  
"You're still watering that?" Omegon asked, sounding a little happier, if also somewhat surprised.  
"Of course I am," Vulkan told him. "A plant is for life, not just for courting."  
His co-alpha snorted.  
In the distance, Vulkan saw the last of the vessels transporting the White Scars to their waiting fleet take off, and Magnus slumped against a nearby wall as his mate was carried up and away from him.  
Vulkan was sympathetic to his brother's dejection, especially as — or so it seemed — the sorcerer had only recently realised that he wouldn't be leaving with the Khan, which was something he really should have seen coming; Magnus was so good at seeing things coming, so long as they fitted in with his desired world view.  
"Maybe," Vulkan suggested, "you should help care for it as well."  
Horus and Sanguinius, who had also been there to see their brother off, were now dragging Magnus back away from the spaceport and apparently doing their best to bolster his spirits.  
Far closer to Vulkan's actual location, Omegon shot him the most unconvinced of looks, to which the Salamander could not help but chuckle.  
"Are you staying long, then?" he asked to keep the conversation going. "I've missed you in your absence."  
A slight smile twitched at Omegon's lips.  
"Yes. I hope so. That's why I was away so long. I've arranged for someone else to be Omegon in my place."  
"Who will you be, then?"  
The corners of Omegon's mouth twitched up again and stayed up this time.  
"Still Omegon, just in private. You know we love a good secret."  
They both laughed at that and then, as one, turned briefly to look back at Alpharius, checking that they hadn't disturbed him. The omega continued to sleep soundly, so both returned to their original position at the window.  
"You'll be spending the heat with us this time?"  
Vulkan did not miss the strange, sidelong look Omegon gave him then.  
"We don't —"  
"Ah, forgive me. I had assumed that you had a more traditional dynamic."  
Omegon forced a smile, a fake expression if Vulkan had ever known one.  
"That _would_ be odd."  
"It's just, the first time," he began, feeling that he had to explain.  
"We were both focussed on you. And it's not like we saw anything of each other we hadn't seen before."  
"I see."  
Although he had not looked away from his co-alpha, Vulkan refocussed his gaze on him, wondering if he should put an arm around Omegon, or if that would be pointless given that the other was ensconced in a thick layer of bulky armour. Then, he glanced back over to the bed.  
"Perhaps, seeing as your brother is asleep, we could spend some time alone together, without having to worry about waking him."  
"If we go to our rooms, I can get my armour off as well," Omegon added, nodding in agreement. "Come on."  
As they passed through the antechamber of the twins' quarters, Vulkan's eyes fell on the knitting he had left there when he had resolved to do something about Alpharius's unhealthy cogitator habits.  
"So, are you still expecting to have to go out sometimes?"  
"Occasionally."  
Vulkan thought about it.  
"Remind me to ask you something later," he said to Omegon as the other alpha proceeded to his arming chamber.  
"What?"  
"I'll tell you then."  
"Why not now?" Omegon asked over the sound of the screws in his shoulder plates being removed.  
"I thought you like secrets."  
"Only when they're _our_ secrets."


	10. Understanding

Vulkan looked up from his knitting as the door clicked open, studying the primarch who entered carefully.  
"Omegon?"  
"Yes," the other replied, approaching to stand over him. "What are you making?"  
"A scarf."  
Omegon raised his eyebrows.  
"A scarf? For whom?"  
"For you."  
"Me?"  
Vulkan nodded and resumed manipulating the wool onto his left needle.  
"Yes, you. To keep the void chill away when you do have to leave."  
"I don't suffer the void chill, Vulkan," Omegon told him matter-of-factly.  
Vulkan gave him a soft look.  
"Well, I worry about you anyway, all alone out there, wherever you are and whatever you're doing."  
Omegon watched the click of his needles for a long time, apparently hypnotised by the movement of the wool as it was weaved into the scarf. Then, he seemed to come back to his senses and said,  
"There was something you wanted to ask me."  
"Yes." Vulkan looked down at the small strip he'd started with, utilising a wool of dark blue and green in honour of the legion of the scarf's intended owner. "I wanted to know if you had any colour preference for the main body. Or I can start it again in a different colour, if you'd like."  
He continued to knit through the silence, taking care not to pull the wool too hard out of habit.  
"White," Omegon decided eventually, still staring intently. "Everything I own is black. But you can keep what you've started — I like it."  
"Alright."  
The other alpha sat down, but did not stop watching.  
"Won't it break?"  
"I've had the wool especially reinforced," Vulkan replied, shaking his head, "and it comes from Nocturne, so it should have a certain amount of natural resistance to fire."  
"Why do you have wool on Nocturne?"  
Vulkan shrugged. It was a good question, but not one he knew the answer to.  
He wondered if he should stop his knitting for now and focus properly on a conversation with Omegon, but his co-alpha seemed quite content to continue his staring, wide oceanic eyes darting back and forth as they followed the flash of Vulkan's needles. So they sat like this for several more minutes, before the soft thud of the door opening and closing again drew both of their attention away.  
"There you are," Omegon said calmly, eyes now firmly fixed on his newly-arrived twin.  
"Were you looking for me?"  
"No."  
Crossing the room, Alpharius took two glasses from the table at the side and then returned to the seating area, handing one to Omegon and keeping one for himself.  
Although Vulkan was familiar with this ritual, he still couldn't help but watch as they both, as one, sliced open their skin with sharp, deft blades and let the blood slide from their arms into the cups, the crimson liquid staining the decorative crystal and making abstract art on its walls. At this point, the two would sometimes dilute their blood with wine or some other drink but this time, they swapped the containers without addition and, tipping their heads back in unison, drank.  
Vulkan never knew what it was they shared in their blood, nor what the exchanged looks that came after meant; although, as a whole, the twins had opened up a lot, they still remained secretive in nature. Nevertheless, despite his curiosity, the alpha always tried not to wonder too much — he knew that his partners would share what they wanted to with him when they were ready, and did not wish to make things uncomfortable between them by pushing it.  
"Are you going to continue?"  
Omegon's eyes had fallen back to the Salamander's hands, which had stilled as he thought. Vulkan, too, looked down at his knitting.  
It was time, he decided, to start on the white. 

When Valdor arrived at his bedroom, Leman Russ was there waiting for him, pacing as he usually did with his head down and his hands restless at his sides.  
This would have been a suprise, had the Custodian not already seen the Wolf King on the security feeds and decided to come down for the sake of saving him several more hours of pacing.  
Russ looked up immediately.  
"Ah, Constantin."  
Valdor had not had time to close the door before he found himself the recipient of a firm but brief kiss, which he did his best to return before Russ pulled away.  
"I didn't know if you'd be busy today, so I thought it best to come early," Russ said, as if that were a full explanation in and of itself.  
"Lord Russ?"  
The Wolf King gave him a surprised and slightly disappointed look, which caused Valdor an unfamiliar feeling of leaden pain in his chest.  
"You know I'm leaving early tomorrow morning, don't you?"  
"Yes."  
Russ looked slightly confused now.  
"I came to say goodbye," he explained forlornly, drawing closer to the Captain-General once again and placing his rough hands on Valdor's waist.  
They were very close. The last time Leman Russ had stood this near to him, the primarch had kissed him so long and hard that his vision had gone dark with splotches, his head had felt as if filled with helium, and he had found himself fervently glad to have been wearing his armour, without which he would surely have fainted. Valdor had wondered then if Russ had simply forgotten that Custodians did not have such enhanced lung capacity as primarchs did, or if he did not care, and then he had come to the realisation that perhaps that was what love was — wishing so passionately to be close to someone else that you could not restrain yourself, even if you were Leman Russ.  
Although they were close, they did not kiss this time. Instead, Russ shifted his hands, gripping tighter, and said,  
"Do you mind if I do something?"  
Valdor paused on the verge of asking what it was that Russ meant to do. He thought back to his reading.  
_Alphas like it when you trust them._  
"I do not, my lord," he replied instead, then instantly scrambled for his weapon when Russ leaned further in and bit his neck, only just holding back from attacking the primarch when he remembered that this was apparently something alphas did — although Valdor was sure that such a bite was supposed to be used to form a bond, which could only be done in the mating period commonly known as 'the heat'.  
Russ had pulled back a little, his mouth still scraping at the swollen, broken skin he'd caused on the side of Valdor's neck, but his teeth no longer buried in the flesh.  
"I'm sorry, I should have been clearer."  
Slowly, Valdor loosened his grip on his combat knife, returning it to the depths of his robes, and tried desperately to think of what he should do now.  
_When bitten by their alpha, the subordinate mate will often lift their head, elongating their neck in a sign of submission._  
'Submission' was not a word that sat well with the Chief Custodian but then, they weren't mates, so perhaps it was a little different.  
Placing his hands on Russ's arms in place of the hilt of his knife, he experimentally tilted his chin up, just slightly, carefully watching the still stooped Wolf King, feeling as the alpha's heavy breathing paused, then resumed.  
"Do you know what you're doing?" Russ growled.  
Valdor swallowed.  
"No," he admitted.  
Russ growled again, without words this time, then gently asked,  
"Would you mind, if I finished?"  
"No."  
Constantin raised his chin a little more and held still as Russ's teeth returned to his neck, the alpha's mouth hot and wet against his skin. Even once the fangs were withdrawn, that moist heat remained, lapping at the wound in an almost reverent fashion, Russ's tongue a ticklish balm to the throbbing ache that had developed.  
After several minutes, the primarch pressed one last kiss to the wound and stood up straight again, a feverishly excited sort of heat burning within the enlarged pupils of his wild eyes. When he kissed Valdor, the Custodian could taste his own blood on the alpha's lips, sharp and stark against Russ's usual earthy flavour.  
"Do you know what that means?"  
"I do not, my lord."  
Russ hummed, all previous discontent now truly banished.  
"It means two things. Firstly, a warning to other alphas that I have claimed you as mine. Secondly, a promise to you that I will be back to properly make that claim."  
Nodding his understanding, Valdor wondered what _he_ was supposed to do with this bite mark — it was hardly in an easy-to-conceal place, and already he could feel that it wasn't healing as such a wound normally would.  
The primarch in front of him didn't seem to have any concerns, though, and asked quite unperturbedly,  
"Will you be there to see me off?"  
"I doubt it," Valdor told him — he was becoming increasingly aware of how much time he had spent with Russ already, and that he didn't have more to spare — although the fact of it caused him some regret.  
"You always have been such a dutiful servant of my father's." Russ laughed weakly. "Well, I suppose this is it, then. I'm going to miss you."  
"I will miss you too, my lord."  
"Promise you'll think of me?"  
Valdor was sure he would think of Russ every time his collar shifted for quite some time. He nodded.  
"Goodbye, then."  
Russ stepped past him towards the door.  
The next moment, Constantin found himself readying to fight for the second time, and again he was forced to calm himself when he realised that the Wolf King meant no harm; out of the blue, Russ had pressed him into a forceful embrace that sent them both stumbling a few steps backwards, his arms flung around Valdor's neck and their cheeks held firmly together.  
"I love you, Constantin. Have I ever told you that?"  
"Never so directly, my lord."  
"Well," Russ murmured, an odd, incomprehensible wetness to his voice, "I do."  
He sniffed and seemed about to say more then, perhaps realising that every second he stayed would only make leaving harder, reluctantly let Valdor go and turned back away, putting on his usual bravado to smile in the doorway and add, "I'll detain you no longer. I'm sure there will be plenty of people clamouring for my attention by now anyway."  
Once he had taken a further instant to steel himself, the primarch shut the door and was gone from Valdor's sight. 

"Has Russ been to say goodbye?"  
"Yes, sire," Valdor answered as he entered the room fully and took a seat a little away from their game, from where he would be able to watch. He looked as stoic and unaffected as ever, despite his known partiality for the primarch in question, his face stony and devoid of emotion — like it always was.  
There was, however, one very significant difference to the Custodian's appearance and it was one that the Emperor also seemed to have noticed.  
He gave Malcador a _look_ , His dark eyes glinting with a sparkling energy that had not been seen in His face for a very long time. For his part, the Sigillite returned that look with the fullest force that anyone ever could when staring into the face of the Emperor of Mankind, feeling the ancient warmth in his heart rekindle somewhat at the thought of the relationship they had helped to foster.  
When they both returned to looking at Constantin, once Malcador had moved his piece on the game board and Revelation had moved his, the Emperor was serious once more.  
"Do his attentions bother you?"  
Valdor did not answer immediately, instead taking the time to mull over his thoughts and convert them into the words he wanted.  
"To the extent that they do not obstruct my purpose, my liege, they do not."  
"And what if he were to return and make good on that promise he has left you with? What would you think of that?"  
"I would not want it to interfere with my duties —"  
"We are assuming that it will not. How would you feel?"  
Again, the Custodian did not give his reply straight away.  
"It's your turn," the Emperor added, glancing at Malcador and nodding down at the board between them.  
"I'm thinking," he explained. The Regent was not a natural strategist, and planning his moves now was made only harder by the ongoing conversation; unlike his master, he did not have the luxury of giving his focus to multiple activities at once.  
"You spend a lot of time thinking," Revelation observed, although He did not seem bothered. He turned back to Constantin, whose mind was still whirring at the edge of Malcador's extramundane senses.  
"I would not mind," the Captain-General said at length, "although I would worry that Lord Russ might wish to make it such that my service to you would be impeded."  
In spite of not believing that it would do him any good in the context of his dwindling array of pieces, Malcador moved his solitary Templar at last, allowing the Emperor to make His move, which He did with great effect.  
"Do what you wish," the Master of Mankind said, addressing Valdor. "You know your purpose, and your place. If Russ will not respect the boundaries you set, let him listen to me."  
Constantin bowed his head, which signalled the end of the conversation for the time being and allowed Malcador to fully focus his attention on the game board before him. Although only a few moves had passed since he had been distracted, he could tell now that he was refocussed that the choices he had made had been terrible; it was useless to try to win against his master, but the Sigillite normally tried to put up a fight, and prided himself in not going down easily.  
Sighing, Malcador did his best to ignore the waiting gazes on him as he began to plan his attempt at a comeback.  
"You play so much better when you're actually paying attention," Revelation commented several turns later, after He had allowed Malcador to take several of His pieces far more easily than he would normally have been able to, and before He executed his victory strategy.  
"Still not as well as you," the First Lord replied once the Emperor's plan had run its course, sweeping the last of his pieces off the table in defeat.

Omegon found his twin where he expected to find him, sitting surrounded by screens of data, idly flicking from one display to another with the same look of distant enjoyment on his face that he always got when he was scheming. Absorbed as he was and recognising that he posed no threat, Alpharius didn't react to the alpha's entry, nor to his approach.  
Omegon drew his eyes over the displays, and saw only one that interested him.  
"Let me look at that."  
Leaning over his brother's shoulder, Omegon peered at the screen.  
"Look at what?"  
"The battle report."  
Alpharius glared but refrained from moving away from the screen on the cogitator, folding his arms instead.  
"What, am I preventing you from being a control freak?" Omegon asked him, gently teasing. "Do you know who else is a control freak?"  
"You."  
He pursed his lips.  
"That wasn't the answer I was going to give."  
"I know."  
On the screen to their left, a video stream showing the ongoing compliance of the capital world of the Paxis System was rocked with the explosions of the natives' futile attempt at resistance.  
"The switch to Vulkan's 'humane' warfare seems to have been largely successful," Omegon commented with reference to the report, turning his attention to his brother's face.  
Alpharius nodded, thoughtful.  
"There has been one dissenter amongst the officers."  
The profile of a typical-looking Alpha Legion operative materialised on the screen to their right, including details of his particular crime and the measures taken to keep him quiet.  
"Still active?" Omegon asked, surprised, then shrugged it off. "Have a replacement prepared." He nodded. "Next time I go out, I'll deal with the problem myself."  
"And when will that be?" was Alpharius's response. He sounded almost sulky, like he wished to deny Omegon the chance to exercise his killing arm for once in what would be a while.  
"You don't think we can shut a man up for a year or two if necessary?"  
"There are quicker ways to kill someone."  
" _Too easy_ ," Omegon hissed directly in his ear.  
Alpharius sighed, then smiled a small smile, apparently realising and understanding his eagerness.  
" _Fine_ , you get to kill him."  
"You are so kind."  
It wasn't that Omegon truly needed his twin's permission to make the kill, but more that, if Alpharius decided to have the problem taken care of before the alpha could do it himself, it would not look good for Omegon to try to counter his brother's order; it was best to be on the same page.  
The screen to their left flashed suddenly as the planet capitulated, triumphantly declaring Imperial victory.  
"Too easy," Alpharius complained, mimicking Omegon's words, if not his tone, "boring."  
"I suppose if we want to keep everyone happy, we'll have to find a new game," Omegon reasoned.  
"Not the dissenter," the omega pointed out.  
Omegon shrugged.  
"He won't complain."  
In the screens in front of them, Omegon saw as Alpharius's face broke into humour.  
"You can't complain with a knife through your throat."  
"You can't indeed."  
Growing tired of leaning over Alpharius's shoulder, Omegon shifted so that his chin rested on his twin's head and smirked as the omega tried to bat him away.  
"Your chin is pointy."  
"No more so than yours."  
Alpharius grumbled and groused, but eventually gave up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah, good old twin bonding...


	11. Afterwards

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just as a quick heads up, there's a bit of a time skip between this chapter and the last.   
> Anyway, I hope you enjoy it!

Constantin Valdor was not a man accustomed to being clumsy, and so when his shaking hand fumbled as he knocked on the door before him, he found himself staring down at his sweaty palm as its fingers trembled, wondering if this was really such a good idea.  
"Yes?" the inhabitant called, low voice little more than a terse growl this close to the heat.  
Taking care as he opened the door, Valdor entered slowly, unsure as to what he should expect but in no way anticipating the fearsome growl that greeted him, nor the accompanying glower. "What are you doing here? Do you not know that the heat will soon begin?"  
"I do, my lord," he confirmed.  
"Then what, Constantin, in the name of all things worth loving in this miserable galaxy, are you doing here?" Russ paced towards him then turned and paced back away.  
"Your father has given His consent for me to join you."  
"My father?"  
"Yes, Lord Russ."  
The Wolf King was incomprehensible to him; so often, when Valdor expected that he would be pleased, he instead seemed to take offense at whatever it was that had just been said to him.  
"My father? He has?"  
"Indeed, He-"  
"And what about you, Constantin? Do you give _your_ consent?"  
"I only ask, my lord, that you be gentle."  
"That's not what I asked," Russ grated out, somewhere between a snap and a roar. "Do _you_ give _your_ consent, Custodian? I do not expect that it will be pleasant for you."  
"I do," he promised, hoping that that would be enough to ease the primarch's sullen temper. "But be gentle, please. I will have duties to attend to once the week is done."  
"You may have to remind me of that," Leman gritted out, then added, "although it is very important that you promise me two things."  
Valdor nodded.  
"No matter what I do to you, you must not beg and, even more important than that, once it has started, you must not try to run. It is _very_ important. Do you understand?"  
Valdor nodded again, committing this information to memory.  
"Yes, Lord Russ."  
"Constantin, you understand that if you don't leave this very instant, you will not be able to."  
"I...wish to spend this week with you, my lord."  
As last, as if something had flipped a switch inside of him, Russ's ill temper disappeared and he grinned a disbelieving grin.  
"Well then, take your clothes off and submit to me." He paused. "And Constantin?"  
"Lord Russ?"  
"Call me Alpha."  
"Alpha," Valdor repeated, wishing he could deny that he was nervous, and the Wolf King growled his pleasure as he helped strip the last few items of clothing from the Custodian's body and claimed Valdor as his. 

The heat was nearly upon them. He could feel it in the air and under his skin, Alpharius's unaltered omega hormones infiltrating everything around them and making the fact inescapable.  
"Are we spending the heat together?" Vulkan asked him, because it was still uncertain each time as to whether the omega would want to put such trust in him.  
Alpharius nodded, yawned, and said,  
"But no bonding."  
"Of course," Vulkan agreed easily.  
He didn't mind; he was glad enough to have a partner with whom to spend the heat, which saved him from feeling the need to take hormone blockers and suffer the spiralling low mood that came with them.  
Leaning over the bed, he pressed a soft kiss to Alpharius's temple and then allowed the omega to gently tug him down onto the mattress as well, so that they could lie together.  
"But I take it you won't be staying with us," Vulkan said to Omegon, who was not on the bed, but leaning against the wall by the door, laughing at the sight of a giant like Vulkan being pulled onto the bed by someone as — comparatively — small as Alpharius.  
Omegon shook his head, which wasn't a surprise, given that his relationship with Alpharius was no more than an intimate fraternal bond.  
"Will you take suppressants?"  
Omegon shrugged.  
"The hormones will do the job well enough."  
Vulkan thought about it.  
"If that is the case, can I trust you with something?"  
From his space on the bed, Alpharius snorted, apparently incredulous at the idea that Omegon might be trustworthy.  
"What?" Omegon asked, sounding similarly astounded.  
"Will you look after my plant for me?"  
To Vulkan's dismay, it seemed at first that Omegon would refuse as he too snorted, giving the potted plant an almost suspicious look.  
"It only needs to be put by a window and watered daily," the Salamander reasoned and, with surprising ease, the other alpha conceded.  
"Very well," he agreed, approaching the plant and picking it up, the pleased expression of a child given a task by an adult flitting ever-so-briefly across his face before he evened it out. "A plant for my other half, then."  
Spluttering in his indignation, Alpharius sprang up from his reclining position, disgruntled by the suggestion of such a trade, but Omegon only laughed as he carried his charge out of the room.  
"Enjoy," the alpha called, a last word before the door swung shut behind him.  
Vulkan turned his attention fully onto Alpharius, who was now settling back down into the bed with an exaggerated pout that Vulkan thought just needed to be kissed. Leaning over the small primarch, he pressed their lips together and then buried his nose in Alpharius's neck, running his hands covetously over the omega's body as the heat edged closer. 

"This is not what the books said would happen," Valdor heard as he made his way through the Tower of Hegemon the very same afternoon that Russ had come out of the hormone-filled daze normally referred to as the heat.  
He glared at Ra as he entered the room.  
"Aren't you even a little stiff?" Diocletian asked, sounding almost disappointed, and the Captain General chose to ignore him, although he was sorely tempted to threaten to make _him_ stiff.  
"Anything to report?" he asked instead, already looking through sheaves of paper and scrolling cogitator screens to catch up with what he had missed.  
A general negative sounded throughout the room. Frowning despite the fact that this was a good thing, Constantin set the papers down.  
"Prepare my armour," he ordered and serfs rushed to comply, none daring to look at him.  
Was it him they didn't dare look at, or was it the swollen bite mark on his neck?  
Valdor wasn't sure if he regretted wearing low-necked robes, which prevented him from covering it up, or if he was glad that he had no collar to irritate the inflamed wound, which was already painful. Russ had assured him that it would heal.  
_Russ_. Although Constantin would never have denied that he liked the primarch before, now he felt something more: the earthy scent of his — of his mate, of his alpha — which he had barely noticed before now lingered in his nose and he yearned to smell it again; the merest brush of his hand, while previously no more than a touch, had sent Valdor's skin tingling and his heart racing by the time the heat had finished; when he had seen the primarch in his contentment at the end of the week, it had stirred a feeling in the Custodian that he had never felt before of pleasure in his alpha's — _his alpha's_ — gratification.  
He had his duty, though, and that would invariably come first; whatever Russ may say, and however he may make Valdor feel, he would always be secondary. 

They met, as they always did, for their usual post-heat gathering, which took place over the days following the mating period as, one by one, those who had been affected by the heat trickled out of their bedrooms and back into general life. Already in the room were a number of betas, most alphas, and a very few of those omegas who did not have an alpha with whom to couple.  
Alpharius was still in bed but Vulkan knew that his omega would be fine for a while longer, so he sat and greeted his brothers as they arrived in the living room, marking their demeanours and appearances — the Lion was as calm and aloof as ever; Lorgar looked grouchy, as he usually did; Magnus seemed miserable, as was to be expected with his mate so long gone and with no sign that he would be back soon, his normally tolerably tamed inferno of hair wild and raging, his one eye narrowed in general displeasure.  
Leman Russ was the last alpha to enter, sauntering into the chamber with a spring in his step that was bound to make Magnus's mood worse. There was something in his air, something ineffable yet tangibly there, that made all occupants of the room turn to look at him, and there was a silence as they all sat, staring, trying to figure out what it was. Vulkan thought he had an idea, but it seemed somewhat ridiculous, and he was having a hard time believing that he was right.  
"You _didn't_ ," Roboute breathed eventually. " _He_ didn't."  
The Wolf King nodded, his face breaking out into a huge, toothy grin.  
"He did. _We_ did."  
The silence returned, coloured now by shock and awe — an unusual set of emotions for a room occupied solely by primarchs.  
"Tell us all about it, then," Fulgrim told him, sitting forwards with his eyes wide and excited.  
Leaning back as Russ regaled them with a word-by-word account of what happened, Vulkan allowed his mind to drift, only pulling it back when the door opened again and a small — for a primarch — bald, bronze-skinned, blue-eyed figure slipped in, dressed in dark, layered robes with a hint of silvery white peeking out from under the collar of his outer layer.  
Of course, Russ had not been the last alpha; it was just that Omegon had never joined them before.  
At least, Vulkan thought it was Omegon — certainly, he was wearing Omegon's scarf, and that he was up and active was a strong indicator — but he was still too far away to be certain.  
The Lord of the Alpha Legion made no pretence, immediately coming over to sit next to Vulkan.  
"How is he?" Omegon — Vulkan was now sure it was Omegon — asked in a low voice as he settled into the cushion to Vulkan's right, leaning in close enough to keep their conversation private, but not so close as to attract attention.  
"He's fine. He was asleep when I left him."  
Omegon nodded contently.  
"How is my plant?" Vulkan asked when it became apparent that his co-alpha didn't have anything else to say on Alpharius.  
"Fine. We reached an agreement."  
"An agreement?"  
"I watered it and gave it sunlight, and it didn't die on me."  
Vulkan laughed at that.  
"It wasn't so hard to care for, then."  
"I suppose not."  
Leaning closer, the larger alpha kissed the smaller gently and briefly, cupping his face as he did so and feeling the warmth of his skin. Through this contact, Vulkan felt his co-alpha automatically recoil from the kiss, so he let go a little more quickly than he otherwise would have.  
"I'm sorry," he told the wide-eyed face before him.  
_They'd never kissed in public,_ Vulkan realised. Perhaps that was it.  
Omegon nodded and let the stiffness within him fade back out, although he spared a cautious glance for their brothers, who were still clustered around Russ a little way away, Magnus now looking much happier to hear that Valdor had not waited around after the end of the heat.  
"I'll keep it for when we're alone then, shall I?" Vulkan asked, returning his attention to his partner. "And I take it that you've gone to such lengths to hide your scarf for similar reasons."  
Omegon pulled a face.  
"The Lord of the Alpha Legion can hardly be seen to be wearing handmade knitwear."  
Something about that sentence — perhaps the grandiose pomposity of it, or Omegon's particular choice of phrasing, or the fact that it was delivered by an eight-foot posthuman giant made for war — struck Vulkan as unexpectedly ridiculous and, when he laughed, his co-alpha grudgingly joined in. 

The Master of Mankind frowned as He drew back from His study of the mark that had been left on Valdor's neck and turned to the blood sample He had taken, swirling it around the test tube and peering in after a further few seconds. Whatever He saw there, it seemed to please Him, as He gave a small nod before setting it back down.  
Valdor dared not move; he wasn't sure whether the Emperor had finished examining his neck and did not wish to disrupt His work.  
While he waited for the man to speak or do something, Valdor's eyes tracked around the room, scanning the many books, instruments and trinkets that his lord liked to keep, even though he had seen them all thousands of times. He read the gold titles of the ancient tomes with their tattered covers and watched as the planets of the nearby automated orrery slowly rotated around the stylised sun before the sound of his master's voice brought his eyes flickering back to his more immediate surroundings.  
"You have formed an almost-full bond," the Emperor told him, "which is impressive, given that only one of the two of you has the necessary physiology for it. I would be surprised that it is possible, were your bond-mate anyone other than a primarch."  
If Valdor had ever doubted it, that made it clear which one out of him and Russ lacked the 'necessary physiology' — but he had not doubted it, for he knew that this was how the Emperor had made him. It occurred to him, then, that the Master of Mankind could have very easily made the primarchs without sex as well and, if Constantin had been in the habit of questioning his lord's ways, he would have wondered why He had not made them as such.  
The Emperor looked at him with what might have been amusement in His eyes.  
"There are benefits to this arrangement."  
Valdor struggled to imagine what those might be; he had seen how the primarchs behaved, and those who called themselves alphas in particular were nearly always trouble.  
"Even Leman Russ?"  
"Especially him," Valdor answered.  
The Emperor actually laughed this time, which was unexpected.  
"Many alphas and omegas find those without a clear sex unsettling," He informed Valdor. "Which would be problematic for the primarchs, given the roles they fulfil.  
"How do you feel?" He asked suddenly, and for several seconds, the Custodian didn't know how to react.  
"Fine," he came up with eventually.  
He had originally been going to say 'normal' but that wasn't entirely true.  
The Emperor was taking notes now, a pen in His hand and a file on the desk to His side.  
"How do you feel about Leman Russ?"  
"I have always liked him."  
That wasn't what his master meant.  
"Something inside says that I should be happy whenever I think of him. The last time he touched me, and a number of the times before that, it felt like someone had lit a fire beneath my skin. But it was only pleasantly warm; it did not burn."  
"No?"  
The scratch of the pen nib on parchment filled the momentary silence, then the Emperor asked,  
"And how does it feel to think of displeasing him?"  
At first, Constantin did not know; he had never considered it before. It was unpleasant, he found, but nothing compared to the thought of failing his master, so he was unconcerned by this.  
"It would not impede my duty," he replied confidently.  
The Master of Mankind nodded again, wrote that down, and sent the file back to its place on one of the bookshelves without a second glance.  
"Good," He said at length.  
He reached out a hand to brush the bite on Valdor's neck, running the pads of His fingers over it.  
"It should heal soon."


	12. Bonds (Un)Made

"I don't mean to force your hand," Vulkan began, unsure. "You certainly don't have to do it if you don't want to, but I was wondering if perhaps it might be nice for you to..." He searched for the words. "Be honest with our brothers."  
"Be honest," Alpharius echoed distrustfully, as if it were some suspicious new concept.  
"I don't want to pressure you, I just thought it might be nice, for you to be known as different people."  
Vulkan looked especially at Omegon as he said this; the conversation to which he made reference had taken place many months ago and never been touched on since, but it still stuck weightily in the Salamander's mind.  
He waited, hoping that he had not overstepped the boundary of the twins' inclination to secrecy.  
Alpharius and Omegon looked unimpressed.  
"What a thing to suggest," Alpharius declared at last, seeming affronted.  
"He said no pressure," Omegon reasoned.  
"He did."  
For the duration of several long, nervous moments, they stared deeply into each other's indistinguishably narrowed eyes. Then, in perfect synchronicity, they moved their gazes to Vulkan.  
"We appreciate the thought," Omegon began.  
"We do?" Alpharius asked, wrinkling his nose.  
"Yes."  
The omega frowned and considered it before sighing.  
"Well, I suppose so..."  
Omegon turned back to face Vulkan.  
"But," he continued.  
"It's a truly terrible idea," Alpharius finished.  
They shared a glance, apparently decided that they had said what they needed to, and turned their gazes back to Vulkan, resolute and once more identical in their displeasure.  
"That's fine," Vulkan assured them both, before any further offence could be taken. He wondered if he should add that the current arrangement made things harder for him; the more he got to know the two of them, the harder it was to always name them Alpharius in public, no matter which he was actually referring to.  
The twins, however, had already gone back to staring at each other, considering, before at last, just as Vulkan was beginning to wonder if he should feel left out when his partners ignored him like this, Omegon broke the contact to stand from his seat next to Alpharius and crossed to the table at the side of the room, where a tray was loaded with three crystal wine glasses and nothing else. He carried the tray back to the coffee table at the centre of their seating arrangement, then took two glasses, one of which went to Alpharius, and the other of which Omegon kept for as long as it took to slice open the skin of his arm and drain a trickle of blood into the cup, then swap it with the glass Alpharius had originally had, which now also contained crimson liquid.  
Watching attentively as they partook in their usual blood-sharing ritual, Vulkan did not miss the significant, affirmative glance they shared as their twins' life force slid down their throats although, as usual, he did not know what it meant.  
Alpharius picked up the remaining wine glass, reopened the soft skin of his forearm with the tip of his knife, and bled into the receptacle for the short time it took for the cut to cover itself over again. He handed the glass to Omegon, who did the same.  
By this point, Vulkan had some idea of where this was going, although he couldn't help but doubt that he was right — he had been sure that he would at least damage any trust they might have had in him when he suggested coming clean to the rest of the primarchs, so for them to decide _now_ to share so much seemed unlikely.  
The scarlet-smeared crystal clutched with two hands, Omegon moved to sit next to Vulkan and offered the glass up to his co-alpha.  
Vulkan carefully, almost reverently, took the glass in both of his hands, feeling the warmth of Omegon's flesh as the other withdrew from underneath his grasp, leaving only the hard pattern of the glass.  
"Are you sure?"  
They didn't speak, but nodded, staring expectantly.  
Vulkan took a deep, steadying breath. He tentatively sipped from the cup, feeling the hot liquid pool in his mouth and slide down his throat, nestling soundly within him like a coiled snake. It felt odd, metamorphosing, as if it would strip the alpha down to his barest fundamentals and rebuild him up from there in the full light of the great and unendurable knowledge that the twins held within them.  
And suddenly, it all made sense. He knew why Alpharius and Omegon were the way they were, and was impressed, in fact, with how well adjusted they were; he knew what had happened, and what they had done, to get them to where they were now. He knew why Alpharius was sometimes so needy, and sometimes pushed him away; he knew why Omegon sat and watched him through flickering, attentive eyes. He knew why their legion fought as it did, why they kept themselves as secrets, how hard it has been for Omegon to relinquish his control of the Legion's operations — as Alpharius controlled the data with a tight iron first — and stay on Terra to build their relationship. He knew everything.  
Without thinking about it, Vulkan pulled Omegon into a tight hug, beckoning Alpharius over in order to pull him into his lap and do the same. He clutched them in his arms and felt the warmth of their bodies outside of him just as he felt the disquieting warmth of their blood within.  
"Thank you for putting your trust in me," he told them lowly, still overawed by the magnitude of what had just been shared with them. "I will do all that I can to not let you down."  
Vulkan understand now that their relationship had previously only been superficial, physical. Although Vulkan had cared for the two, and the twins had clearly fostered feelings for him, given that they had decided to make this leap and take it further, it was nothing compared to the intimate possibilities for the future he saw open now.  
While he tried to find the correct words to say, the larger one held out his hand, but before he could formulate his request, the hilt of the knife he wanted was being pressed into his grip by his co-alpha. Imitating the movement the twins had made — assuming they were the experts in such things — Vulkan sliced through the skin of his forearm, letting the blood that seeped from the wound run down his wrist and drip into Omegon's waiting cup. Due to his fast healing, the Salamander found he was forced to make the cut again for Alpharius.  
When this was done, Vulkan took his own cup, looking deep into the compounded sanguine life forces of Alpharius and Omegon, an amount of which still swirled in the container. Swallowing, he looked back up to his two partners.  
"To us," he murmured, raising it in a toast, and the two bodies of the Alpha Legion primarch echoed his words. 

Leman Russ was approaching. Valdor knew it like he knew that he was breathing in air, or that his name was Constantin Valdor (etc.), or that it was his purpose to serve the Emperor. There was a tingling at the back of his senses and a prickling within his skin; a man of lesser self-control would have given in to the urge to rub at the mark on his neck, but Valdor was not a lesser man.  
He did, however, turn his gaze from his surveyance over the walls of the Inner Palace to see Russ striding towards him, still distant but coming quickly closer.  
Turning back, Valdor dismissed Samonas — who had been standing next to him — with a wave of his hand so that he could speak with the primarch alone. He stood and waited until the sensation turned to a fluttering in the depths of his soul, and Russ came to stand beside him, the primarch wrapping his arms around the auramite plates protecting Valdor's waist and pulling the Custodian around to face him.  
"Hello, my love."  
"Good morning."  
Russ stared at Valdor for a long time, not moving or saying anything, the focus of his eyes unwavering, and the Captain-General began to feel that he should say something, even if only to break the intensity of the primarch's gaze.  
"Lord Russ—"  
Before Valdor could finish, Russ had silenced him with a finger to his lips and the primarch's own mouth just behind that finger.  
"What did I tell you to call me?"  
The touch was electric, warming the Custodian all over and filling him with the urge to do and be as Russ wanted, which he suppressed.  
_Alpha,_ he had said in the moments before the heat, but Valdor knew that would not do, not in public. He shook his head to signal this then, finding a compromise, breathed,  
"Leman."  
Tilting his head to one side, Russ considered this.  
"That will do," he decided at last, removing his finger and replacing it with his lips on Constantin's, firm and steady until they withdrew all too soon. "Are you busy?"  
"I don't have to be," Valdor said.  
Russ grinned a grin that promised all sort of improper things, if Valdor allowed the thoughts that prompted the expression to run their course into reality — and allow them he did. 

"So..." Russ mumbled into the back of Constantin's neck, the skin of which he was kissing, licking and sucking just because his mate tasted so good and looked so beautiful with the rapidly forming bruises, which healed all too quickly.  
"Leman?"  
Constantin sounded awake — far more awake than Russ was — and alert, as if he might leap from the bed and into action at any moment, if it were necessary.  
Sighing happily, Russ nuzzled a little harder against his mate's shoulder and pressed several more kisses to the beautifully-sculpted muscles he found there. He enjoyed the sound of his name on Constantin's lips, the Custodian's soft tones and firm diction wrapping wonderfully around the two syllables.  
About to suck another little bruise into the junction between Valdor's shoulder and his neck, Russ was denied this pleasure when the flesh moved from under his mouth, twisting as Constantin turned to look at him.  
"Leman?" his mate asked again, voice hitching just slightly as the primarch kissed the newly presented mating mark instead of his previously chosen patch of skin.  
_Right,_ Russ remembered through his contentment. _I was saying something._  
"Mm," he began, to indicate that he was planning to say more. "...Maybe this is a bit early, but will you spend the next heat with me?"  
Constantin looked at him properly now, his watchful eyes meeting Russ's somnolent gaze.  
"No," he murmured.  
The alpha slid one of his hands over his mate's torso, appreciating — not for the first time — the smooth, natural muscle he found there. His hand came to a rest over Constantin's abdomen as he asked,  
"And the next one?"  
Valdor shook his head as he rolled his shoulders back to their original position facing away from Russ, in congruence with the rest of his body.  
Taking full advantage of his renewed access to these parts of Constantin's skin, the primarch kissed the nubs of the vertebrae before him.  
"What about the one after that?" he whispered.  
That one was the important one, the third upon which, if their bond was not renewed, it would break.  
"I hope to," Constantin told him, which would have to be good enough.  
Leaning over his mate, Russ managed to kiss the corner of Constantin's lips before his desire to sleep overtook him and he allowed himself to slump down still half draped over the Custodian.  
"If you need to leave before I wake up," Russ thought he managed to murmur, although he couldn't be sure that he hadn't already slipped into the world of dreams, "then I'll tell you now that I love you." 

When Russ woke up, his arm was wrapped around nothing and the bed beneath it was as cold as if it had never been occupied.  
On the bedside table, Constantin had left a short, brief note explaining that duty called which, the alpha thought, was sweet. 

2.5 standard years. That was for how long his mate had been gone, lost to the pitiless void and wars within it, far from Magnus's reach.  
Deep inside him, he could feel the hollowness left by their dissipating bond as it broke down over time, getting weaker with each day, hour and second past their third heat apart, without renewing their link. It ached, throbbed and twinged, slicing to his very soul.  
Another heat approached, and Magnus could not bear to spend this one alone as well, howling into the long nights for his sweet Jaghatai to magically appear and save him from his burning solitude.  
A knock on the door.  
It could have been Lorgar, there to entice him to take the smaller primarch into his bed, to while away the heat and his time with that warm body, satiating both of their indefatigable desires and claiming him for his own. Magnus had never taken him up on the offer. An omega, tending as they were to be desperate and needy, would take anyone to bed who offered, if the alpha they wanted could not be won over; alphas, on the other hand, were far more picky with their bedmate and, no matter that he had mated with Lorgar before, Magnus's chosen was the Khan, meaning that he would settle for no less — certainly, he did not regret leaving the Word Bearer for him.  
But no; the sharp sound heralded Sanguinius's arrival to the alpha's chambers, most likely to check up on him, to see that there was nothing that could be done to ease his pain, as the Angel had since the Khan had left.  
This time, Sanguinius didn't enter fully, instead poking his beautiful head through the door and saying,  
"Our brother, the Warhawk, is nearly home."  
Magnus's hearts leapt in a manner to which he was unaccustomed.  
"How long?" he managed to whisper.  
"Only a few hours, they think."  
So he won't be spending this heat without his beloved after all.  
He smiled, all teeth, and thanked whatever he could think to thank for his mate's return.  
"Thank you," he said to his brother as well, the bearer of this good news. "Wonderful news indeed."  
As Sanguinius left, Magnus cast a critical eye around the bedroom, taking in its utter unsuitability to host his mate through the heat — assuming they used his room, of course. Magnus didn't know what he'd do if the Khan didn't come up to see him upon arrival, and sincerely hoped he wouldn't have to find out.  
Turning back to the task at hand, he swept all his writings and diagrams into a neat set of piles with a wave of his hand, banished the worn-out pens lying scattered about the place, and straightened his bed sheets.  
The stacks of papers looked disappointingly small; Magnus hadn't managed to do half of the writing he'd intended to do while his love was away. That, he supposed, was just one of the Khan's great enigmas — he was somehow _more_ distracting when he wasn't there than when he was.  
_An enigma of Jaghatai,_ Magnus mused gently, _or an enigma of love?_  
Returning his attention to the room around him, the alpha saw that it was clean, and that the task hadn't taken him nearly as long as he'd hoped it would.  
_What else?  
Food._  
His mate would need to eat — Magnus would need to feed him, once their bond was renewed.  
The Crimson King nodded and set himself to this new task with a purpose and vigour that he had missed since Jaghatai had left.


	13. Reunion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To be honest, most of this is ~~meaningless~~ fluff, but...  
> As usual, I hope you enjoy it!

"You know," Russ started suddenly after a long while of silently sitting on the edge of Valdor's desk, idly braiding his own hair and watching the Custodian as he worked. "I thought you might change your mind about the heat as it got nearer. But you really are not affected by mating hormones, are you?"  
"I don't think so," Valdor replied absent-mindedly, not looking up from the intricate shift patterns he was busy rearranging. "There's something, though," he added. "I don't know what it is."  
"Hm," Russ grunted.  
He stared at Valdor a little longer, the fire in his eyes unmistakeable even at the very edge of the Custodian's vision, then slid from the desk, boots hitting the floor with a soft thud, and made towards the door.  
"Well, I'd best be leaving, before I decide to kidnap you."  
Before his good sense could convince him not to, Constantin looked up from his work and spoke.  
"You have told me before that I can't just leave without giving you a kiss. Does it not work the other way around?"  
Stopping instantaneously, the primarch turned on the spot, a look of ecstatic surprise on his face.  
"You are quite right, Constantin."  
Russ strode back around the side of Valdor's desk and bent over to press the kiss to the Custodian's lips.  
"There," he murmured, still bent at the waist. "But I really had better go now."  
Straightening up, the Wolf King retraced his steps over the polished wooden floor.  
"Goodbye," Constantin said after a pause, then he briefly wrestled with himself over his next word — they were alone, after all, and though Valdor had considered the issue many times, he had come up with no reason why he should not address the primarch as such. "Alpha," he added.  
Russ gave one last grin with one hand placed on the door, ready to open it.  
"Goodbye, my sweet mate." 

Vulkan wondered if Alpharius was ever going to get off his lap, but the omega did not seem so inclined.  
"You're warm," he muttered, snuggling further into Vulkan's chest.  
The Salamander chuckled, not pausing in his stroking of Alpharius's head; by this point, he was well used to his omega's fondness of warmth, and found that he didn't much mind acting as a giant hot water bottle when the Lord of the Alpha Legion chose to cuddle with him.  
"The heat will be soon," he murmured.  
"Hmm..."  
"Are you staying?"  
"Of course I am," Alpharius yawned. "You're my alpha. And you're warm."  
Smiling, Vulkan leaned down to kiss him and was pleasantly surprised when the omega kissed him back.  
They shared several more kisses before they were broken up by Omegon's entry to the room.  
Vulkan's co-alpha went straight to the glasses on the side, picking up two in one hand with practiced ease.  
"Do you want one?" he asked, waggling the third at Vulkan with his other hand.  
"Not unless there's anything that you particularly wish to share with me."  
Omegon turned to share a querying look with Alpharius, then put the third cup down.  
"It's there if you want it," he said, not removing his eyes from his twin, who had gone back to resting his head against Vulkan's chest, still curled up into a little ball.  
There was a silence as the two shared blood, Alpharius wriggling around uncomfortably in order to facilitate the ritual, and a further few minutes passed without a word being spoken as Omegon settled down on the armchair opposite, steepling his hands and continuing to stare at them over the tips of his fingers.  
"You're spending the heat together," Omegon stated eventually.  
"Yes," Vulkan replied. "I was actually going to ask you to look after my plant."  
"Again?"  
There was no need, the Salamander thought, for his co-alpha to look so shocked by that.  
"You're the best plant-sitter I've ever had," Vulkan informed him kindly as Alpharius, having stretched out to find somewhere to set his empty cup down, shifted back around in his lap to cuddle once more.  
The alpha didn't miss Omegon's poor attempt at stifling a smile and smiled in return.  
"Well, will you?"  
"Only because I love you," Omegon told him, then appeared to realise what he'd just said as his cheeks flushed and he looked away. "I mean to say—"  
"It's alright," Vulkan said, before Omegon could backtrack. "I love you too."  
The alpha scowled for a second, then looked pleased, biting his lip to try to distort his face back to a neutral expression.  
"Come here," Vulkan beckoned, and pulled Omegon into a kiss over their omega's head as soon as he was in reach.  
Traces of Alpharius's blood were still present on his co-alpha's lips but it was not unpleasant.  
"I love you," the Salamander told him while their lips were still millimetres apart and then, as Omegon drew back into a straight standing position, told Alpharius that as well for good measure. 

Rogal was still finishing up his last few pieces of work before the mating period in his private study, which adjoined the living room in which Roboute was sat, waiting for his mate to join him. The alpha looked up from his book periodically in the hope of seeing Dorn come through and, after several minutes, come through he did.  
"Are you done?" Roboute asked, setting his reading aside and approaching his omega to greet him with a soft kiss.  
Rogal nodded tiredly. He was shivering slightly, not because he was cold, but from the build-up of hormones inside his body, driving him to the edge of thought. Roboute knew that the omega was shaky underneath as well, and that it would be costing him a great deal of effort to remain standing even with the alpha's hands on his waist for support.  
Gently, telegraphing his movements so as to not startle his mate, Roboute swept Rogal off his feet to carry him bridal style into the bedroom they shared, where the bed was set out in a way typical for one prepared by an omega for use during the heat, strewn with the various items Rogal had collected over the past week or so — mostly scavenged articles of Roboute's clothing, which the alpha was looking forwards to getting back once the week was over, but also assorted other materials of the soft kind, such as pillows, blankets and furs.  
Roboute set his omega down in the middle of the nest with a tender kiss, taking in how flushed he looked even with a few hours left until the heat, and then carefully settled in with him, wary of dislodging any of the additional bedding.  
That was another thing the Ultramarine was looking forwards to — being able to sleep in his own bed without worrying about disturbing his mate's nesting. They had discussed passing the heat in somewhere other than where they usually slept but, in the end, Dorn had decided that he preferred the familiarity during this vulnerable time. That being the case, Roboute didn't mind really.  
Shifting slightly closer, he wrapped an arm around his omega, kissed him, and pressed their bodies close. 

Magnus was a sweaty mess by the time the Khan's entourage of White Scars made planetfall, ambling out of the spaceport in a typically disarrayed trickle with no sign of their primarch. Narrowing his eye, he scanned with his extra-mundane sense and quickly located his mate within the port, his inviting scent now carrying on the wind to the window Magnus had thrown open and gently teasing his nose with the promise of what was to come. He scowled through his despair, cursing the Khan's apparent ignorance of his plight. Didn't he know that the heat would start, with or without him, in less than ten minutes? And that was a generous estimate.  
More likely than not, though, he didn't; it would not be unthinkable that the Scars' heat rhythms had moved out of synchronisation with those at work in the palace, without the presence of the appropriate pheromones to unify them.  
Magnus clenched his teeth and drummed his fingers on the ledge by the window .  
Yes — there. There he was, walking with his keshig around him, looking as beautiful as he ever had: as strong, as sleek, as dangerous.  
Growling to himself at the sight of Qin Xa so close _his_ mate, Magnus gripped the window sill tightly and leaned forwards to better watch the Khan's procession, desperately waiting to see him again. 

It was a pleasant day on Terra, as Terran days went. The sky above the Himalazians was unusually clear, allowing the Throneworld's extensive array of satellites to peer down through the smog, Luna just visible in the corner of the sky.  
Looking up out of the transport from the spaceport, the Khan could clearly see Magnus's face staring down at him, wide-eyed and hungry, the sorcerer's expression contorted by regular pangs of emotion as he leaned out of the window to watch.  
Jaghatai purposefully returned his gaze to his immediate surroundings, turning his mind away from the fresh desolation written across his partner's body language and onto pleasanter things.  
They continued on foot once they had reached the residential wing in which the Khan's chambers were found and, although the primarch did not hurry, nor did he dawdle. He went at a steady pace, balancing the conflicting eagerness and apprehension that both pulled him towards his brothers and caused him to shy away — and, on a narrower level, made his hearts leap with joy at the thought of being reunited with Magnus, his long-term partner and true friend, while simultaneously clenching his jaw against the tingling tension in the atmosphere that told him the heat had arrived and that the alpha would be stifling.  
The Khan forced his own tension to release with a sigh. He still wasn't sure what to do about his partner, although he knew what had to be done. The bond got old quickly, chafing at the corners of his being, and there was something novel and refreshing about its no longer being there — something liberating in no longer feeling its gentle tug on his body, in no longer being bound so completely to another person, even if that other person was his friend and lover. Truthfully, the Khan was very much enjoying not being bonded anymore.  
_But there is more to it than that._  
It would have been the right thing, perhaps, to have discussed with Magnus the idea of letting their bond lapse before the fact of it. To have suggested not renewing it then, as opposed to now, when the alpha was caught up in the throes of need for his chosen.  
But they had not discussed it and Magnus, for all his knowledge, probably had no idea that this was what the Khan planned.  
_How do you tell an alpha whose every thought is fixated on having you that they cannot?_  
The Warhawk sighed inwardly again. His beta senses were not naturally attuned to the mating hormones of alphas and omegas but he knew them well enough to identify them as they hung in the air and there, clinging to the edges of the hallway, was the unmistakeable trace of his partner's loneliness.  
Conflicted, he scowled at the floor.  
"Khagan?"  
The Khan's keshig were still around him, as ever, and Qin Xa was looking at him in a way that unavoidably said that he knew something was playing at Jaghatai's mind.  
"Magnus," the primarch said by way of reply. "He will be hard to deal with."  
"We will accompany you, if you wish."  
Thinking about it, the Khan nodded. Even with the strength of the pheromones in the air right now, there would still be at least an hour before his warriors were induced into the heat.  
"Wait outside a short while," he decided as they neared the Crimson King's rooms. "I will signal you if I need you." 

Magnus was still gazing wildly out of the window when the Khan opened the door but turned quickly, dark eye widening.  
"I thought you wouldn't come," the Cyclops rasped, voice hoarse as he stumbled forwards to grasp the Khan in his hands, already leaning in, eager to make his claim once again.  
The Khan stopped him with a hand over the alpha's mouth, teeth scraping the skin of his palm barely an inch from his neck.  
"No."  
"No?"  
Magnus looked lost, bewildered by the Warhawk's actions, as if he couldn't quite comprehend that simple word. Still feverish, he stared at the Khan with undeniable intensity and barely restrained lust.  
"I am sorry. I should have spoken of this to you before now. I do not wish to form a bond with you again."  
"Why?" Magnus asked, a hint of caution creeping past the desperation in his voice.  
His usual omniscience didn't seem to be playing its part very well — but then, the hormones bubbling up within his body surely meant that even the coherent level of conversation they had achieved was impressive.  
"Do you not think I am a good alpha?"  
"I'm sure that you are a fine alpha. The problem is more that I am not well suited to subordination."  
Magnus smiled a bit at that, his face warm and fond. He seemed to understand, now.  
"I suppose you never were," he said ruefully.  
Reaching one ruddy hand up to caress the Khan's cheek and jaw, the alpha gave him an almost pleading look.  
"But you are staying?" he asked.  
Jaghatai nodded.  
"I wouldn't have come if not."  
"Good."  
Whatever self-restraint Magnus had been exercising vanished and the alpha kissed him sloppily and needily, pressing their bodies ever closer until the Khan felt the need to stumble back for more room.  
"Shouldn't we go to your bed first? Get undressed?"  
Growling, the sorcerer laid off his attack and turned to do as suggested, while grumbling,  
"You make me wait, keep your keshig outside the door and tell me we may not bond, and now this." He sniffed with a drama that, if the heat were not ongoing, the Khan would have called feigned. "Insufferable beta."  
The effect was somewhat lost by the astounding speed with which Magnus stripped off his clothes as he spoke.  
Smiling to himself at his partner's antics, Jaghatai followed suit and permitted the alpha's passion to carry them away.


	14. Endings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a bit short but should wrap things up a bit, I hope. It's also the last chapter of this main fic, although I may do other works in the same AU in the future. I really hope you've all enjoyed reading this and, as usual, if you have anything you want to say, I'd love to hear it. 
> 
> Also, thanks to DAZzle_10 for inspiring me to write the last little bit — it's fully non-serious and not exactly part of the rest of the fic, but I hope it will entertain you nonetheless.

Revelation was waiting for him in his personal chambers, sitting with two glasses of crimson wine already poured out and set on the small table where Malcador took most of his meals. He didn't say anything as the Sigillite entered, merely watching with dark golden eyes glittering amidst the ever-shifting details of His hawkish face. If this were a primarch — or any other, lesser person — waiting in his chambers, Malcador might have chided them for their impatience, remarking pointedly that he had not yet had time for his dinner, and that he was in great need of rest after a long and hard day of work. But it was not a primarch; it was the Master of Mankind who was perched casually on the arm of Malcador's favourite chair, hair let loose to frame His face and wind around His neck, staring with unblinking intent.  
Malcador bowed low and waited until his master had gestured for him to rise to sink into another nearby chair and presume that one of the glasses of wine was meant for him.  
"They are all back, then," he said between sips to break the silence, peering at the Emperor from beneath his hood.  
"Yes," Revelation agreed. "And a number appear to be settling down at last. Perhaps we can retire now," He muttered, His eyes now closed and His face, for once, resolved into a single expression of peace.  
"You always were the optimist," Malcador sighed and pursed his lips, never ceasing in his study of his master's face.  
The corners of the Emperor's lips quirked upwards. He opened His eyes again and said,  
"You are tired."  
"Yes," the Sigillite confirmed wearily; even if he thought the Emperor wouldn't notice, there was no point in lying.  
Revelation hummed, looking around the room as if He had not seen it before.  
"I will not take much of your time, then, unless you say otherwise," He said.  
He returned His gaze to Malcador.  
"I don't mind," the Regent said, again seeing no point in obfuscating the truth.  
"Very well."  
The Master of Mankind stayed and watched as Malcador ate a simple meal, taking the other glass of wine for Himself. At one point, He rose from His perch and came to stand behind the First Lord, removing his hood with gentle hands and loosing his hair from where it had been tied up that day.  
Once the meal was done, Malcador's master pressed a kiss to the top of his head, His warmth solid and reassuring behind the Sigillite's back.  
"Time for bed, I think," Malcador muttered.  
"Indeed it is," Revelation agreed.  
He leaned to the side to look over Malcador's shoulder to the Sigillite's face and their eyes met. No words were needed.  
The Master of Mankind took His oldest friend's hand to help steady him as he rose from his chair, then led him by it to the First Lord's small bedroom. 

His mind was beginning to clear just slightly, the fog of the heat itself lifting and giving way to the haze of the post-heat. It was a lazy time, a time for resting, napping, and cuddling up to the warm, solid alpha beside him, for feeling safe, well, and cherished. For feeling that, to the extent that luck existed, he had truly been lucky in this relationship.  
Alpharius knew he was needy sometimes and Vulkan, no matter what, was there, always. He didn't seem to judge Alpharius badly for wanting comfort, nor to look down on him for the way he was. Nor was he controlling; Vulkan always seemed perfectly content to let Alpharius seize the control he craved, allowing him to lead the way in their relationship and move it along as he felt comfortable to. He was, Alpharius thought, the perfect alpha for him — not that he would ever tell Omegon that, because that meant admitting that his twin had been right, all those years ago.  
Vulkan was gentle. He didn't tease Alpharius — he teased Omegon, sometimes, just a little, but not Alpharius. He never pushed for more than either of the Lords of the Alpha Legion were able to give, although he would gently nudge them to give more than they had originally thought they wanted, just enough to push them out of their comfort zone but not enough to make them truly uncomfortable. He was tender, patient, and nurturing, kind and calm, accepting and understanding.  
He was pressing small, loving kisses to the top of Alpharius's forehead, gazing at him with eyes glowing through half-lidded slits. Alpharius snuggled closer and Vulkan hummed his approval, carefully embracing the omega in a way that would make him feel secure, but not trapped.  
"Will you leave soon?" Alpharius asked cautiously; he knew that, although Vulkan would normally at least wait for his partner to fall asleep first, the Salamander was, like all alphas, inclined to gather with their brothers after the mating period. Of course, Vulkan was always most diligent in returning to check on his omega, but that didn't keep the bed from losing his volcanic heat while he was away.  
"Do you not want me to?" Vulkan replied, picking up on the tone in which Alpharius had spoken.  
"You're warm."  
"So you say."  
There was something else about Vulkan, beyond his physical warmth, a warmth of character that gave comfort to his presence.  
"I like cuddling with you," Alpharius confessed.  
"And I enjoy cuddling with you, Alpharius," Vulkan told him, smiling warmly. "I'll have to get out of bed at some point, and so will you, but would you like me to stay for now?"  
"Yes."  
Vulkan kissed Alpharius's forehead again.  
"You're missing a word there," he rumbled.  
Pouting, Alpharius mumbled,  
"Please."  
"I imagine Omegon will be expecting to meet up with me," Vulkan added as a further consideration.  
"He's not an idiot," Alpharius muttered. "He'll come here."  
"Very well, then."  
Smiling again, Vulkan patted the edge of the pillow just above Alpharius's head.  
"Come up here so I can kiss you properly." 

As was usual, the Khan slipped out of the bed the moment the heat had ended and made his swift way through to the bathroom to have a shower.  
Magnus lay back as the sound of the water came on, pulling the sheets up around himself even as he continued to stare at the door through which Jaghatai had just left. He felt surprisingly at peace, the warmth within him rekindled by the time spent with his mate, and this warmth, Magnus knew, would keep him going for long enough.  
The Crimson King dozed off in the bed, his head filling with half-formed dreams of a lithe and angular body with stringy, compact muscles and silky hair, until he heard the sound of the bathroom door reopening, and got to see that body for real.  
Magnus gave the Khan a sleepy smile as his love forewent the use of a towel to cover himself up and instead focussed on dressing.  
"You are always so quick to leave me."  
"Yes," the Khan agreed as he pulled his arms through the sleeves of a thin coat to complete his outfit then came to the bed to press a kiss to Magnus's lips. "But you know I'll always come back."  
He did, it was true. Magnus also knew that the fuzzy hooks of sleep were pulling his eyelid down, clawing him into their master's domain, and that he would soon fall into the comfort of his usual post-heat nap. Nevertheless, he kept his eye open just long enough to see his mate leave through the door, to see that he was alright. 

Leman Russ took his time sauntering to the room in which they usually met post-heat, savouring the sweet scent of the air as it drifted lazily past him. He was in a good mood; although he had spent the heat alone, it seemed that, just by having a mate, somewhere, the burning loneliness of the period was made easier to bear.  
His thoughts drifted unerringly back to that mate. Russ had been to see Constantin as soon as he could make himself presentable but the Custodian had been busy and had spent several minutes trying to ignore Russ, who was sitting on his desk and studying every line and plane of his body with every ounce of intent the primarch could, before asking him to leave as he was a distraction, and Valdor would soon be called away to meetings anyway.  
You couldn't have everything in life, though, Russ decided, and the few sweet kisses he'd managed score had made the trip up to Constantin's office more than worth it.  
The living room, when he reached it, had accumulated a number of his brothers in the time since the heat had ended, although there were some noticeable absences among those who Russ would usually expect to see. The Wolf King nodded to them all as he entered, and it was then that his eye caught on a primarch he had not expected to see. The Khan, it seemed, had returned.  
Russ eyed his brother more closely; despite what some might think given his blustering facade, Russ did actually pay attention to his surroundings, and he was very aware that this was the first time in quite a little while that his Chogorian brother had turned up to these meetings in anything less than his thickest overlayers.  
_The first time since he had been bonded to Magnus that he had eschewed the use of heavy furs and cloaks to obscure his form._  
Not wanting to be caught staring, Russ peered at the corner of the Khan's neck under the pretence of stretching his neck, rolling out his shoulders as he did so to complete the image.  
There was no bonding mark.  
Russ's grin, if it were possible, widened as the implications of that occurred to him.  
"How is Magnus?" he asked the Khan, taking a seat on a nearby couch.  
Jaghatai shot him a look through heavy-lidded eyes.  
"Fine."  
Russ shrugged and took that as a good answer; the Warhawk never had had much to say to him.  
He turned his attention to the rest of the room, to his brothers all sitting together and getting along, then thought of better things — things that wore golden armour and red cloaks, and who worked harder than Russ would like yet did it with ease, and who were wonderful, beautiful and perfect. 

\- Several months later

Omegon skipped on his way down to the spaceport, to the extent that his armour would allow, Vulkan's parting kiss still warm on his lips. In the air around him, the stench of the heat was truly settling in and the pathways were unusually empty, all alphas and omegas — apart from him — cloistered indoors to pass the mating period.  
This little trip would be a quick one, he knew, but he still looked forwards to it — to the thrill of the hunt, however brief it would be, and the satisfaction of the kill with which he would solve the problem of the legion's one dissenting officer.  
Nestled carefully in the crook of his right arm was Vulkan's plant, entrusted to him as it usually was, and in his left hand he carried the the extra supplies that the Salamander had insisted on packing for him before lovingly wrapping the handmade woollen scarf around Omegon's neck and telling him to be safe.  
Omegon glanced down at his leafy companion for the week and nodded to it, a smirk coming to his lips as he did so.  
"We're going to have fun together," he told it. " _So much fun_."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And from that, thanks to Daz, I now fully subscribe to the idea that Vulkan has got Omegon a Dora the Explorer lunchbox, and Alpharius a Thomas the Tank Engine one. You can't convince me otherwise.  
> Ah well.


End file.
